Unmasked
by Irish Luck 19
Summary: Still hunted by the Gotham police force a year after Dent's death, Batman's luck takes a turn for the worst when one of MCU's forensic scientists makes bringing him to justice her top priority.
1. Outcast

**Title:** Unmasked**  
Chapter 1: **Outcast**  
Summary: **Still hunted by the Gotham police force a year after Dent's death, Batman's luck takes a turn for the worst when one of MCU's best forensic scientists decides to make hunting him down a top priority.  
**Rating: **Teen for violence and some language.  
**Disclaimer:** Any and all flashes of brilliance that may have made it into this story are due entirely to the influence of my English teachers and the editing and suggestions of my best friend. Therefore if Christopher Nolan, DC Comics, or Christian Bale want to sue anyone for this, they should go after them. Just saying.  
**Author's Note:** So, obviously, this is the newest attempt at creating a good Bruce/OC story as well as my first fanfic. I'll freely admit that one of the main reasons I've written this is so I can learn what my weak spots are in writing and how to fix them. So, while any and all reviewers are my heroes for making me feel like a million bucks, one who leaves me constructive criticism is the next best thing to Christopher Nolan himself stopping in to read this (Ha!). Also, I'm in the market for a beta reader, so if you know of any good ones (or are a good one yourself) who's not too busy, drop me a note!

* * *

Even from his perch on a roof several stories above, the sounds of shouting and breaking glass in the apartment still sounded clearly in Bruce's ears. "You've tipped off the police? How long until they get here?" he muttered into the small mouthpiece in his helmet. Nobody else in this neighborhood was going to risk their neck by calling the cops. They'd keep their heads down and pray they weren't next.

"Approximately five minutes, sir." Bruce was always amazed at how badly his butler's voice clashed with the drama of Batman. A break-in that could turn into a hostage crisis, hardened criminals, the jungle of looming skyscrapers, and the diction of a perfect English gentleman, speaking in the same measured tones as if he was offering to put on tea. "Don't you think you should leave them to it?"

The shouts broke off for several seconds, then were replaced by the unmistakable sounds of gunshots. Bruce shook his head even though he knew Alfred couldn't see the gesture. He hoped those shots had just been made in anger, to prove a point, not because the thieves had actually killed the person inside. "No time," he hissed, "They're getting worked up in there."

Alfred started to say something else but Bruce switched off the connection. _This is the last time I'm keeping contact with Alfred during my night work_, he promised himself for the thousandth time, _no matter how worried he gets about my safety._

He really meant it this time too.

Bruce knew there were probably better ways to enter the building, but he just didn't have time for planning or finesse. If the police got here before he was clear… better to go in, do his job, and get out. Ever since he had taken the blame for Dent's and the other men's deaths, Batman had been on the top of Gotham's most wanted list.

He swooped from his rooftop, snapped a winged arm down as he approached the window. His shoulder smashed into the glass and then he was rolling smoothly from shoulder to feet, assessing the situation as he did.

Trashed living room apartment, filthy and tiny, barely more than a hole in the wall. Three men stood in a cluster, backs to him, just starting to turn to the sound. He threw himself onto them before they had time to react. His kick hooked around the back of the first one's knees, an armor coated elbow ramming into the base of his skull as he fell. He wrenched the weapon from a second, spun behind, shoved him into the last as he raised his weapon. His hand was thrown to the side, the gun fired harmlessly into the air as the two of them stumbled against the back of the sofa. Bruce swept the feet out from under them both before they could recover, seized the wrist with the weapon as the men went down. Bones twisted and broke under his grip, he snatched the weapon free, flung it aside, kicked its owner hard in the temple, sent him unconscious. A quick, sharp blow to the face to keep the other one from pulling any stunts, and the fight was over.

Two minutes. It could only have been two minutes, maximum, since he had talked to Alfred. Not a huge window of time; he still needed to hurry if he was going to get away cleanly before Gotham PD showed. Bruce swung his arms a bit and twisted his neck to loosen the muscles as best he could in his constricting suit, regulating his breathing and thoughts. The shoulder that had broken through the window protested painfully, adding to the chorus of sore muscles and minor wounds that was sounding from his aching body. It was the second robbery he had stopped tonight, along with three assaults, a drug bust, and a foiled gang initiation. Dawn was already closer than he liked; he had been making his way back to the Manor when he heard this one.

He had to check on the man he had come for in the first place before moving out, though. Bruce kicked aside piles of garbage and smashed up furniture and waded his way across to the figure slumped against the fair wall.

The man was lying still. Very still; he didn't even react to the giant bat who carefully tilted his body over to examine him. Bruce winced at what he saw. The thieves hadn't simply been showing off when they had fired those guns. The man was leaking blood in the shoulder, gut, and a much larger stream from the thigh, probably from a cut in the femoral artery. The broken nose and red streaking on his teeth looked to be compliments of several blows to the face, and the blood on his knuckles suggested that he had tried to put up a fight. Bruce was about to write him off as dead when the man drew a faint, pained breath.

The police were probably already pulling up to the building. He could just leave the man for them. But the way he was bleeding, Bruce wasn't sure if he'd make it that long. If he had gone unconscious from loss of blood already… he pulled a belt from the pile of clothes tossed against the wall and hastily tried to wrap it around the bloody thigh without jostling the man too badly.

He'd misjudged his time or Alfred had overestimated. Not thirty seconds later, he caught the sound of feet crashing up the stairs. Bruce yanked the tourniquet tight and ran for the window as the door burst open behind him.

"FREEZE!" a panicked voice yelped, but he was already dashing away, springing from the window into a—

The sound of a gun going off coincided perfectly with the red hot hole ripping into the joining of neck to shoulder. Suddenly his neat glide was spiraling out of control, there were two terrifying seconds of free falling, and he more crashed than landed on the street below. His head bounced hard on the pavement, the helmet rammed into his skull, and with the shock waves of landing everything felt broken. Worse, he could feel blood pouring out of him, the pain bursting through his body from white heat to red agony, as if the bullet was sending out a pulse. On the point of passing out, Bruce fumbled for the headpiece, praying that it hadn't broken in the fall, that he could connect to Alfred.

There was a burst of static in his ear, then he thought he heard a clipped British accent. It sounded worried, but Bruce couldn't separate the words, and everything was slipping strangely, turning dark at the edges. "Help—help me." The line went to fuzz again if it had even been clear in the first place. Maybe he was imagining things.

Somehow he dragged himself from the middle of the alley down a couple of stairs to a deepset doorway that looked to be the haunt of a couple of homeless from the cardboard and ragged castoffs it was crowded with. Deserted now, luckily. Bruce collapsed into the most shadowy corner trying to breathe without shifting his shoulder.

_That policeman shot me_, he thought vaguely. Even his own thoughts unraveled as soon as he formed them. It seemed as if he could hear laughter in his head, but it was hard to tell with the funny roaring in his ears.

The last words he heard before he blacked out were from quite another voice, one that was somehow perfectly clear.

_To them, you're just a freak. Like me._

Darkness rolled over him, smothering his instinctive denial.


	2. Snatched

Chapter 2: Snatched

"Leaving work early Miss Taylor?"

Andi jumped and spun to find Jim Gordon standing behind her, his mustache twitching up with his lips and his brown eyes twinkling behind thick glasses. "Commissioner! What are you doing back here at MCU? Aren't you supposed to be rubbing elbows with all those politicians and such at County now?"

"Don't remind me," Gordon muttered, "I'm here for the weekly check up on this unit. If I'm lucky I'll be able to stretch it into an all day thing. Where are you off to?"

"Meeting some friends during my lunch hour," Andi said a bit guiltily. Usually she just took fifteen minutes in the break room to eat—forensics was always backed up, especially in trace analysis. Long breaks tended to be discouraged. "I can stay late to make up for it if I need to."

Gordon snorted and shook his head. "Taylor, just because I'm the Commissioner doesn't mean I don't still keep up with what goes on around here. It's a Friday afternoon and you've worked through every weekend the past two months without complaint. Go on, and take the rest of the day off too. You deserve a break."

Andi's smile stretched wider as she finished swiping out and hurried to the police department's parking garage, carefully steering her battered Altima through the ranks of cruisers and civilian cars. She'd forgotten how much she'd missed Gordon; he'd been a fantastic boss from the time he'd hired her, right when MCU had been formed. Even then, something about mild, tired looking Commissioner Gordon had impressed her. He knew exactly what he was doing and, even better, he seemed to be incorruptible. Not always something guaranteed in Gotham's police department, whether you were the commissioner himself or a lowly new forensic scientist fresh out of training like she had been.

The summer sunlight hit her face through the windshield and Andi sighed in utter contentment as she turned onto the highway. Free. Free for the rest of the day. She couldn't remember having so much spare time since Easter.

Andi had to roll her eyes when she'd threaded her way to the center of downtown and finally located the small café Pam had picked out for lunch. Trust Pam to choose an all-organic, vegetarian restaurant. Her friend was sitting at one of the outdoor tables, basking in the sunshine, long legs stretched out on the chair in front of her. Several younger guys that looked to be college students, probably from Gotham State, kept giving her hopeful glances that Pam didn't deign to notice. Andi grinned. Only Pam could combine a classically beautiful face and body, brilliant red hair, and her crazy green make-up and clothes and still come out looking exotic rather than ridiculous. She started waving to Andi the moment she came into view and got her boots off the chair so Andi could sit down.

"Leena's not here yet," she said, "Probably—"

An earth shaking rumble cut her off as a mud-splattered pickup that had to be at least thirty years old carefully made the turn into the lot, driven by a blond woman so small it looked as if she was hardly able to see over the dashboard. Andi just shook her head as Leena somehow maneuvered it into a parking space, then climbed out carefully and made her way over, her delicate appearance at complete odds with the massive vehicle she'd driven.

"Hi guys! Sorry I'm late, things were crazy at Arkham."

Pam looked anything but amused at the pun.

"Harleen Quinzel. Just _what_ is that earth-killing, gas guzzling monstrosity you are driving?"

Leena's smile faded. "I borrowed it from my neighbor," she said defensively, pink creeping up her cheeks. "It's not _mine_."

"I thought you were saving for a new car."

"I am but… well…"

"What happened to the money this time?" Andi asked, biting the corners of her lips to hold back a grin. Leena's blush deepened.

"It… might have gotten donated to Operation Smile," she admitted.

Pam's expression softened to exasperation. "Again Leena? How can you be a psychiatrist to the criminally insane with a heart like yours? I'd have thought they'd break you long ago."

"But I love my work!" Leena protested. "I feel like I can actually make a difference with my patients. I've made so much progress with some of them; even the higher ups have noticed. And you're never going to guess the new patient I've been assigned to!"

It couldn't be clearer that she was bursting to tell them, but their conversation was cut off as the waiter came to their table. Pam ordered enthusiastically, Andi with a wince. She hated eating vegetarian. Leena just named the first thing she saw on the menu and opened her mouth eagerly the second the waiter had moved away. Pam stalled her with a raised a hand.

"Just a second Leena." Twisting in her seat, she finally glared at the college kids with all of the blazing fire Andi knew her gaze could hold—mostly, Andi suspected, because they were now leering at her and Leena as much as they were at Pam. "You!" she snapped, "Yes, you idiots. Learn how to behave like _men_ before you go chasing real women! And keep your eyes where they belong."

Leena's face turned beet red, and even Andi was shifting uncomfortably, but Pam appeared completely unphased as she turned away from them. "Anyways," she continued, setting her napkin calmly in her lap. "A new assignment you said, Leena? What is it this time? Not another serial killer right?"

"No. Although I don't know why you're still so worked up over me getting Zsasz. After the fear toxin Dr. Crane used on him, he really is harmless." Leena took a deep breath, ignoring the snort Pam gave. "They gave me the Joker!"

Whatever sort of reaction Leena had been expecting, Andi didn't think she and Pam quite lived up to it. The two of them stayed dead silent, Pam glaring at nothing, Andi just trying to pull her thoughts together. It had been bad enough when the Joker was assigned to Arkham. For Leena to have to take him as a case and, worst of all, to be _excited_ about it… Andi tried not to think of the legends still bandied about by cops in the break room, telling how he had broken the back of the mob in a matter of weeks without even making them his focus. They _still_ hadn't recovered after over a year. If hardened criminals had been torn apart by this maniac, Andi didn't even want to consider what he might do to an innocent person like her friend.

"What's the matter?" Leena finally asked. Her voice was somewhere between hurt and resigned. She must have known this argument was coming.

"Well…" Andi glanced at Pam, trying to cue her bolder friend into voicing their thoughts, but Pam was staring stonily at her place setting. "It's just…" Oh forget tactfulness. Andi took a deep breath and went for blunt. "Leena, this is a man who tried to blow up half of Gotham. And now you're being shut in a room with him to try and establish a relationship. Do you _really_ think this is a good idea?"

Leena's mouth twisted strangely. "Andi, they're people in pain, in darkness. I can't just leave them to it. The Joker more than anyone _because_ he's so far gone."

"You can't save all of them you know, Leena." Pam's voice had an edge to it that was nearly angry, and she was glaring at her fork so hard Andi thought it might start to smoke soon. "And I really, really doubt there's a chance you'll make so much as a dent in this one's armor."

"I—I know." Leena paused. "But I have to try, don't you see? Otherwise I'd be someone who let people hurt themselves and others when I could have stopped it. I can't _not_ do it. Not if I want to stay the person I am."

"Aren't you frightened of him at all?" Andi asked. Leena gave a shaky laugh.

"I'm terrified Andi. I can't stop thinking of all the things that could go wrong, how I could hurt him worse or not reach him or…"

That wasn't at all what Andi had meant, and the fact that that was all Leena could come up with in her worries about the Joker told her things had gone quite far enough.

"Leena," she said firmly. "You're one of the best people I know. The fact that you wouldn't just gun the Joker down on sight sets you apart from ninety-nine point nine percent of Gotham. But it's not the Joker I'm worried about in this. It's you. Leena, you're our friend, and since you never consider what's going to happen to you so long as everyone else is happy, Pam and I—"

Leena's phone rang and Andi shook her head and shut up. Her friend snapped it open with an apologetic glance at them. "Dr. Quinzel." Her serene voice came as close to businesslike as Andi had ever heard it. "What? He did?" A pause. "No. No, I can definitely come in. Where did they take him? Alright, I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

She hung up and looked at them. "One of my patients somehow stabbed himself in the arm. I've got to go to Gotham General, see if I can talk the doctors into giving him a private ward once he's out of surgery."

"Sure." Andi muttered. Leena stood up and started to pull her checkbook out, but Pam stopped her.

"Don't worry. We'll cover you—it's not like you've eaten yet. You just go deal with your patient. And save the extra money for that car!"

Leena nodded gratefully and a moment later there was an almighty roar as she started her truck again. Andi and Pam sat in silence until it had passed out of hearing, then Pam sighed and put her head in her hands.

"Does she realize that she's going to get her neck broken one of these days?"

"I think the better question is if she cares," Andi said, "Leena's just too… ah, she's just too much. Better than I could ever be."

"You and me both." Pam muttered. "Well, if there's nothing else to do for her…" She shook her head and lapsed into a worried silence until their salads were brought out. Andi gave the wilted leaves a wary glance.

"Do you know if there's anything to the rumor that someone shot the Batman last night?" Pam asked after a minute, missing Andi's hesitation over what seemed to be a tomato, as she dug eagerly into her own food.

"We don't even know if the round got past his armor," Andi grimaced, "Sergeant Bailey was answering a call about an apartment robbery in the Narrows and found him taking down the thugs behind the attack. Batman killed his partner, Wuertz, last year, so he… well, Bailey fired on him, even though he was running. They couldn't find the Bat, but Bailey swears he was hit."

"Oh. Oh well," Pam sighed. She loathed the Batman nearly as much as Andi and the rest of the police force did after he'd killed those cops last year. "Did you get any forensics on him at least?"

Andi barked a laugh. "Do we ever? Even _if_ Bailey hit him, _and_ he bled onto the street, _and_ we knew the exact spot where he'd landed, he was in the Narrows. The back alleys haven't been cleaned in ages; they're practically crawling with DNA from the druggies and random homeless living in the area. Not to mention the years of filth down there since trash pick-up is unreliable. The odds of finding anything in that cesspool resembling the clean samples courts always seem to demand now are slim to none and apparently the investigators from county thought their hands didn't need to get soiled on something that hopeless. All we really got are more fibers from that cape and eyewitness descriptions of his mouth shape. Useless."

"Ma'am?"

Andi turned to find the waiter standing close behind her chair. "Your friend? She dropped this on her way out." He held out Leena's battered cell phone.

"Oh. Thank you." Perhaps there was a good side to carrying a cell that was several years old. It made the odds of someone returning it go up at least. Andi turned the phone over in her hands thoughtfully.

"Do you want me to take it to her?" Pam offered. "My greenhouses aren't too far from her apartment and I can drop by after work."

"Don't worry about it… knowing Leena, she might not come home until late and I can drop by Gotham General without too much trouble," Andi said slowly, "Gordon gave me the day off."

"You're thinking of something." Pam accused. Andi faked a smile.

"Not really. Just worrying about Leena. I think I'll go take this to her now—I'm not too hungry after that news she told us."

"Sure thing." Pam's mood dimmed perceptibly at the mention of Leena's problems. The Joker. What was that girl _thinking?_ "I'll get the bill this time."

"Thanks," Andi grinned, "And I'll choose the next restaurant."

She was getting into her car when Leena's phone rang. Andi hesitated for a second, then flipped it open.

"Andrea Taylor, answering for Dr. Quinzel."

"Oh, Andi!" Leena sighed in relief on the other line; she must be calling from the hospital. "Good, you found the phone. Can I stop by your apartment to pick it up tonight?"

"Don't bother," Andi said, keeping her voice light. "I'll take it by the hospital in a few minutes. Just let me stop by MCU to pick something up and I'll be on my way."

"You don't have to—"

"No, no I want to," Andi told her firmly, "I haven't been to Gotham General since I quit med school and it'll be nice to see the other people there. I'll meet you by the employee entrance alright?"

"Well, if you're sure…"

"I'll be there in half an hour." Andi clicked the phone shut before Leena could protest any more.

* * *

"Excuse me? Miss? Are you a doctor?"

Andi had to squint into the late afternoon sun as turned towards the British voice, and it was a moment before she could really see past the glare to the panicked face of the elderly gentleman rushing towards her. She hadn't meant to stay so long at the hospital for it to be getting on to evening. "Close enough," she said crisply, "What's wrong?"

"It's my wife." He pointed towards a very nice Cadillac, its trunk facing the employee entrance they were standing at. "We were driving and suddenly she couldn't breathe."

"The emergency room is—"

"Please, she passed out three minutes ago and her lips are blue."

Andi's eyes went wide and she raced towards the car, the old man following at a fast shuffle. She had already yanked the door open and was bending down for mouth to mouth before she realized that there was absolutely no one inside.

"What—"

Suddenly a damp cloth was pressed hard over her mouth and nose. Andi flailed as a strange chemical scent filled her nostrils, but the man was surprisingly strong for his age and whatever he was using, it was very effective. She felt herself slump over, and he helped by pushing her into the car, held the cloth on her face, and then everything went dark.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yes, for anyone who keeps up with the comic book characters, these are _the_ Harleen Quinzel and Pam Isley. But, as you can probably guess from what's happened in the story so far, I'm not going to stick to canon too closely for their back stories. Although many of the themes and end results of the characters are going to be similar, I've made the characters very much my own, and that means that a lot of their actions are going to be somewhat or completely different from the 'standard versions.'

I also want to give a huge thank you to **NeverTooLate03, Lasgalendil, Darth KenObi-Wan, Sephsekla, Ericstpierre, Spanish Angel, Amee-p, **and **ameisrain** for putting _Unmasked_ on story alert and to **Sephsekla, Spanish Angel, **and **Amee-p **for favoriting it. Most of all, thank you, thank you, thank you to those who took the time to review. I'm trying very hard to learn good ways of expressing myself, but as of right now I can't figure out a way to write how absolutely incredible seeing those made me feel. I really hope that this chapter lived up to everyone's expectations!


	3. Operation

**Chapter 3:** Operation

"Do you think this was wise?"

"What I think is that there was much choice. This is beyond anything I can fix."

"But to kidnap a doctor…"

It was instinct more than anything that made Andi stay absolutely still. She was lying on what felt like bare ground, several large rocks digging into her back. The protesting voice was throaty and soothing, the sort that you instinctively wanted to trust, even now that she was blurrily recalling what had happened. An African American accent she thought. The other was that of the British man who had captured her.

_What's going on?_ Andi ruthlessly quashed the thought. Escape first. Then she could worry about figuring out who these people were.

Carefully she began to assess her situation. Her senses were still dulled and her head felt like it had been stuffed with cotton. But she didn't seem hurt. Wasn't even tied up. Adrenaline was pulsing in her system, burning off the aftereffects of the drug. The dirt underneath made her suspect she was outside, but the air was very moist and cool for a summer night. And it smelled cleaner than most of the places in Gotham. There was the sound of roaring water somewhere close by.

"How long until she wakes up?" Soothing Voiced asked.

"Not long. You can probably get her up now if you like."

There was a pause and then footsteps approached. Andi readied herself. She was glad it was him and not British coming towards her; no matter what he had done, she didn't think she could bring herself to attack an old man.

"Miss? Miss are you awake?" She heard him kneel on the ground, felt a hand placed gently on her shoulder. _Now_.

Her eyes burst open and she sprang, fingers hooked into claws, striking at the face, the hand on her shoulder. His face was shielded with a black ski mask, but her nails pulled bloody ribbons across into his forearm. He flinched back, instinctively covering his eyes, and that was all the chance she needed.

Rock walls on either side and the British man behind her only allowed Andi to go one direction—towards the sound of the water—and it was a second before she realized that she was heading straight for a shallow stream, leading out to a huge waterfall with who-knew-what behind it. No escape that way. She skidded around to face them, eyes scanning desperately for another way out. Rough cave, illuminated by strings of light bulbs, with ceilings as high as a cathedral's. Old brick structures and foundations shored up the place, but she couldn't see any exit except for a shadowed brick tunnel that was behind both of her captors. Not very promising.

British wasn't wearing a mask—Andi had already seen his face after all—and he watched her warily. He stood protectively over a steel work table that held the body of a man lying face down, as if worried that Andi would attack it. Wonder about that later; active threats came first. The man she had attacked picked himself up from the ground and walked slowly towards her. By the way he moved, she guessed that he was pretty old too, but Andi refused to let herself feel guilt for hurting him. _They_ had kidnapped _her_. Their fault if they got hurt. She cast around for a weapon but saw nothing. Even the rocks underfoot were too small or wedged firmly in the ground. Her fingers curled into fists, raised the way she'd been taught in self defense classes, nails biting her palms. Andi could only hope they didn't have weapons.

"It's alright Miss." The one approaching her said. He stopped several feet away from her, as if she was a wild animal that might spook at a moment's notice, and his dark eyes watched her warily through his mask. "We don't want to hurt you. We need your help."

"Help?" Andi asked, stalling for time more than anything else. "What sort of help?"

"Our friend over there," he pointed to the body she had taken for a corpse. "He's been shot."

Andi bit her lip as she slightly relaxed her stance, ready to raise her fists again at the slightest sign of danger. The masked man remained still, so she gave the man on the table a guarded second look. Not dead, perhaps, but she could see mounds of gauze pressed heavily onto his shoulder and neck.

"I'm not a doctor," she said, "I've never done surgery on my own."

"You haven't? I thought you told—"

"I spent a few years in medical school. Dropped out a couple of months into my fourth year," Andi said, "If it had really just been a sick wife like your other friend had said, I probably could have helped. Removing a bullet though…"

The masked man seemed to consider it. "But you're also all we have. And it's bad. Please, can you at least look at him?"

Andi hesitated, her curiosity unrelenting now that it seemed she wouldn't die immediately. Who were these people? Her initial guess—gang members looking for ransom—was laughable. Not with their age, the courtesy they were giving her, or this bizarre set up. But for whatever reason, these men felt that they couldn't just take their friend to a hospital. That had to mean that the man was recognizable and wanted by someone, whether law enforcement or people with good connections…

And suddenly it clicked in her head just who needed fixing. Bailey had hit the Batman after all. The man whose blood the entire police force was baying for, and they had picked her, of all the people in Gotham, to save his life.

Her mind went blank, felt almost as if it was floating. Blood still pounded in her ears, but somehow she felt an echoing, quiet calm take hold of her. She dropped her guard completely and simply stared across the room at the vigilante. There he was, stripped of all glamor, his only guardians an old man and what seemed to be a soft spoken pacifist. And it was up to her whether he lived or died.

"What would you do if I said no?" she asked quietly. The two men traded worried glances.

"Let you go," the masked one finally admitted, "He wouldn't want us to hurt you."

Andi barked a laugh. Right. Like Batman had stopped short of letting others die for him before, even killing them himself if they got in his way like Dent or Wuertz had.

But… he was also a human being. And, although she had blamed Leena for the same thought earlier, Andi knew that she could never intentionally turn her back on someone who needed her help. Besides, she still had a card or two up her sleeve. None of them knew she was a trace analyst after all, and if she was allowed to operate on the Batman…

Feeling almost numb, she moved to the side of the British man and looked down at the patient. His legs were still armored but his back was bare except for swaths of bandages and gauze. The helmet was gone, but where the bandages ended midway up his neck there was a large white towel draped over his head, not allowing so much as a hair to show. He was still as faceless as ever.

"Where was he hit?" she asked. Moving the gauze before she was ready might allow the bleeding to start again. And, somehow, touching him would make it all seem… real. This couldn't actually be happening could it?

"Superior region of the left trapezius muscle. It's lodged near the spine or I would get it out myself." The British man just grinned at Andi's astonished look. "I've patched him back together more often than I can count."

Andi nodded slowly. At least she would have someone to assist. Assist. Did that mean she planned on _doing_ it? She swallowed and stiffened her spine.

"How did it get past his armor?"

"That blocked the worst of it." The masked man said, coming over to join them. He sounded grudging, as if he had something personal against the flaw. "But there are a couple of joinings in his armor between the suit and cowl that allow for him to turn his head. The shooter basically hit the sweet spot."

Carefully, reluctantly, Andi began to remove the bandages. She grimaced at the bloody hole. The British man was right, it _was_ only a hair from damaging the spine. She let her eyes travel down the rest of the Batman and the grimace became a frown. Old bullet holes, knife wounds, even a few scars that looked suspiciously like dog bites covered this man's back. But no tattoos or other identifying marks.

"You realize I might do more damage with my lack of experience?" she asked evenly.

"Without you getting that bullet out, Miss, he'll die eventually," the Englishman said, "The worst that can happen is that he goes a little bit sooner. I stopped the worst of the bleeding but…"

Andi teetered on the edge, then made her decision. "Do you have anything I can use to scrub up?"

* * *

Andi pulled the last suture tight, clipped the thread, and leaned back with a loud sigh. It felt as if she'd surfaced from deep water, drawing her first breath since she had begun operating. In that whole time, her world had narrowed, focused almost, into the man under her fingers until it seemed that even she and the two men assisting no longer existed. Only the near perfect machine of his body, the repairs it needed, were of any importance. By the end, it was as if her own fingers piecing him back together were no more than extensions of her thoughts, clumsily assisting his body to match the pristine image she held of it in her mind. She had no idea how long this had taken—her aching muscles suggested hours, but it seemed only minutes. Or generations maybe.

Perhaps she should have stuck with med school after all.

Her utter involvement hadn't stopped her, though, from carefully separating a tiny sliver of muscle as she worked, and slipping the bloody piece into her glove when the men assisting weren't looking. Not a sterile environment by any stretch of the imagination—her DNA would have to be separated from his when she analyzed this later—but it would be a good start.

"Can you two clean him up?" she asked, "Wash off the blood, dry the skin carefully, and tape fresh gauze over the top." Both of them nodded and Andi used the distraction to peel off her gloves, carefully putting her tissue sample in the pocket of her jeans. Lucky that she had worn dark pants; the slight blood smears her hands left along the pocket blended almost unnoticeably with the denim. It was the best she could do.

With nothing else to do, she found herself staring, again, at the covered head. Who _was_ this man? His aura of darkness was gone for her—Andi supposed that it was hard to keep when you were knocked out and laid on a table like the corpse at an Irish wake—but he still seemed something… more. And less. The mystery surrounding him thickened, but what little she had found disturbed Andi. To know that the Batman was protected from the hatred of all of Gotham by little more than his projection of strength and these two frail people. How had he accomplished so much with so little? Why would he keep doing what he did when everyone so clearly wanted him to stop?

"Would you like me to take you home now Miss?"

Andi shook herself. Yes, she did want to go home. She wanted to get away from these thoughts that were coming disturbingly close to sympathy. Batman was a murderer, she reminded herself. He deserved what was coming to him.

"Actually could you take me back to the hospital?" Andi grimaced wearily. "My car's still parked there." Plus, there was no need to make it easier for the Batman to find her if he wanted to. Not that missing her home address would do much, but it would be _something_ to stall him.

"That's right. I drove you here too." The old man just smiled blandly as Andi glared at him, then relented. "Of course I can take you there. I'm afraid I'll have to blindfold you on the way though."

Andi had expected as much and, rather than making a fuss, she just turned to the masked man who was still in front of the Batman's unconscious form, apparently planning to stand guard while they were gone. "He'll need good pain medications when he wakes up, and antibiotics to prevent infection," she said, "And no strenuous work for at least a month and a half." That ought to be enough for Andi to track him down.

The Englishman's lips twitched. "Oh I'm sure he'll be glad to hear that. If you could stay still while I wrap this cloth over your eyes?"

Andi obeyed, forcing herself not to panic at her sudden blindness. The realization that this would be the perfect time to kill her, now that Batman was out of danger and she was helpless, didn't make it any easier.

Instead of shooting her, though, the old man just placed a hand on her shoulder and carefully steered her forward. They weren't going towards either the brick tunnel or the waterfall, and Andi realized that there must be another door hidden in the back of the caverns. So much for her hopes of collecting water from the fall. But there was still something else she could try…

"Can you wait just a moment? I have a rock in my shoe." Her guide paused courteously and, still blind, Andi knelt on the bare earth, pulled off her sneaker, and shook it as carefully as if she thought there really was something inside. As she retied it, though, she casually scraped her cupped fingers against the dirt and pushed several small pebbles and a fair bit of soil into her sneaker unnoticed. Perfect.

"Alright. Let's go." Andi said.

* * *

Andi spun around as soon as her blindfold was undone, but the old man was already hurrying away. The car—the same Cadillac that she had been kidnapped in—was parked in the darkest corner of the parking lot. Even when he started it, her former captor kept his lights off until pulling out of the lot. He must have guessed that Andi might try to get the plate number. As soon as he was gone, Andi checked his parking space for tire marks, but she was out of luck. If they had kidnapped anyone else, their precautions would probably have kept Batman as ghostly and unknown as ever. He'd find out his mistake soon enough. Reluctantly, Andi turned away from staring at the empty parking space and started her own car.

The clock on her dashboard told her that it was 3:30 AM, but Andi felt wide awake. A good thing too; even in these dead early morning hours, driving in Gotham required alert wits and she needed to get home soon.

Once back in her apartment she began to move quickly, efficiently. The slip of the Batman's flesh went into a small, sterile sample jar in her refrigerator. After a minute of scraping and clipping, the ends of her nails was given similar treatment; she had drawn blood scratching that masked man but it would take a great deal of luck for her to pull his DNA from there after scrubbing up for the operation. The makeshift soil sample she had smuggled into her shoe went in a slightly larger jar, and every stitch she had been wearing, even her jewelry and the hair tie she had had on her wrist, were folded into a neat pile to be tested for fingerprints.

Andi stepped back and surveyed her evidence. Four items and her own memories. It didn't seem like much, but then again, forensics' whole point was to make a very little turn into case-closing evidence. She would have to get up and go to work in a few hours too, act as if nothing had happened. The sooner she could analyze her DNA samples the better. Not bothering to turn off the lights—she knew she wouldn't be sleeping anyways—she set the alarm on her phone and curled up on her couch, trying desperately not to think.

* * *

**Author's Note:** GO IRISH! 23-12 AGAINST PURDUE!

Ahem. Anyways.

I actually started this story because this chapter popped into my head one day and got stuck there. Andi was originally supposed to be a fully qualified doctor, but the appeal of a forensic scientist was too much for me. I've tried to research some of the basics in both fields, but I'm far from an expert, so if any of you readers _are_, it'd be awesome to hear your thoughts and ideas about what's possible, likely, etc.

Once again, a ginormous shout-out to** Delia Ra'Nar, Secret Identity Girl,** and **melbgirl** for putting me on author alert, and most especially to **NeverTooLate03**, **Were-girl13, **and **Secret Identity Girl** for reviewing. Y'all are as unbelievably awesome as four-leaf clovers.


	4. Searching

Chapter 4: Searching

_Location: Large underground cavern, probably built at least 100 years ago (old brick architecture foundations in the cavern). Waterfall indicates location either near the river or one of Gotham's underground fresh water sources (no salt in soil, so not harbor water). Soil sample shows little chemical pollution, and the cavern is large, suggesting that it is probably outside crowded industrial or business sections of the city. Soil also indicates presence of bat guano and high levels of ash. Within a twenty to thirty minute radius of Gotham General._

_Known Associates: White British male, probably in his seventies, possibly medically trained, appears in relatively good health. African-American male, unknown age (probably senior citizen but also seems to be healthy). Partial prints taken from clothing show no matches; probably no military or criminal records for either. Which of the two the prints belong to is unknown. None match US-VISIT database; if any are from the British man, he immigrated before 2004. DNA and blood sample from African-American too contaminated to analyze reliably. Both appear to be wealthy and well educated and the British man particularly seems to know the suspect well._

_Suspect: Uses alias of 'Batman.' White male, tissue analysis indicates roughly between the age of thirty to forty, blood type O-. DNA gives no criminal record or military service in the United States. Numerous residual injuries of varying ages from previous fights, suggesting that he has been the only person using this alias since beginning vigilantism._

Andi sighed as she once again reviewed the analysis of her evidence. Pages of graphs on soil composition, fingerprint searches through more than ten different databases, and DNA from six. The file folder on his possible locations alone was crammed with several large maps of Gotham's water sources, overlaid with others comparing recent fires, the city's expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and the wide swath of land that was the appropriate distance from Gotham General. But in the end, it all still boiled down to this pathetically short summary.

It was more than all the rest of the forensic evidence on the Batman put together. Nobody else had been able to get a clue about his center of operations—although he might have others that Andi still didn't know about—much less figured out his associates or gotten a strand of DNA. Objectively, Andi knew that she had come far, that she _was_ making progress. She'd ruled out possibilities ranging from the Batman being hired by huge networks of conspirators to being trained by the military to not being human at all, along with about a dozen other theories that cops loved to speculate on over beer and cold pizza.

But for all that, she would have thought that after two weeks of searching, she would have come up with something about who this Batman _was,_ not just who he was _not._ The case had been moved to top priority for her, making her fall behind in her other work and even—she was ashamed at the thought—keeping her from more than five minutes of talking on the phone with Leena. She had searched hundreds of pictures of English immigrants to Gotham that were nurses or elderly, combed obsessively through traffic cameras from the night she had been kidnapped for a glimpse of the Cadillac, but there had been nothing. Searches of the soil database for Gotham had given her no hits, but that wasn't exactly surprising. It was years old and had gaps that covered whole districts of Gotham. Plus, she was starting to doubt this cave was actually in city limits which was as far as the database even pretended to cover.

And she still didn't have anything worthwhile on him. The Batman would be back on the streets soon if she didn't figure out something; she'd ordered him to stay out of the action for a month and a half to give herself more time to track him, not because he actually needed that much time to recover. She suspected he'd figure that out sooner rather than later. Andi tapped her lips thoughtfully and tilted her chair back on two legs, set her feet on the edge of the desk while she leafed through the papers at random. What if she tried moving outside on her own—

"Still here Miss Taylor?"

Andi yelped and jumped so hard that the chair lost its balance and tipped over, she and her stacks of work tumbling to the floor.

"Easy! Easy! It's just me." The Commissioner reached down a hand to help her up. "Sorry about that. I saw a light on in the crime lab and went to see who was here at eleven o'clock on a Friday night."

Andi let him help haul her back to her feet, trying to ignore the fact that her heart was pounding as if it wanted to escape her rib cage. She grimaced at the reams of papers and photographs she'd have to reorganize, then turned to Gordon with what she hoped was a casual smile.

"Back at MCU Commissioner? And so late?"

"Trust me, Barbara's already read me the riot act for staying out working, but I need to check on the night shifts every once in awhile too," Gordon sighed. "Are you alright? I really didn't mean to startle you."

"I—yeah," Andi said, "I was just reviewing old cases and didn't think anyone else was still here."

Gordon nodded and glanced at the thin folder still sitting on her work table. "The Batman's forensic file?" he asked, "What are you looking at that for?"

Andi shrugged and made her voice as casual as she could. "Just thought I might see something that the others had missed."

"You and half the police force," Gordon muttered. "You know, Gotham has two loose serial killers, an arsonist, five powerful gangs, and enough rapes and murders to make New York and Chicago look like safe neighborhood playgrounds. Why are you so keen on the Batman?"

Andi was suddenly glad that her own personal analyses and data were scattered on the floor from her fall. She knew Gordon had denounced the Batman when the vigilante had shown his true colors, but some of the force also suspected that he had never fully converted. The least trusting even wondered if he still had some information on the Batman that he was keeping quiet. Andi doubted that; the Batman had held Gordon's family hostage and killed Dent right in front of them. Gordon's loyalty would never extend to a man who had threatened his wife and children. But the whispers and the fact that she was being forced to justify chasing down a wanted criminal were enough to make her wary of confessing to her boss. He might be able to offer help if she told him about the kidnapping, but he could also pull her off the case.

"Maybe because he… because he flaunts being a criminal," she said instead after a minute. "Others, they do what they do because there's something wrong with them or because they're desperate or something. But the Batman seems to be moderately sane, and from everything I've heard has no real motive. He just does it because he wants to."

"Perhaps he does it because he thinks it's right." Gordon suggested mildly. Andi snorted.

"If he thinks killing innocent people to get what he wants is right, he's even more dangerous, sir. That makes him a fanatic."

Gordon seemed to be on the verge of speaking, of contradicting or agreeing with her, but after a moment he just shook his head. "Be that as it may, others are assigned to this case Miss Taylor. I'll be returning this to them."

Andi nodded with feigned reluctance. She had already made copies of the information and it hadn't told her much that she didn't already know anyways. The thing had more holes than a piece of Swiss cheese. But she was almost positive that, whatever Gordon had wanted to tell her a moment ago, telling her to give back the case file wasn't it. _Did _he know more about the Batman than he was telling? Unfortunately, Andi just couldn't think of any way to ask without essentially calling him a liar and losing her job.

Gordon smiled at her. "I know that there's no way to persuade you to leave this alone Taylor. You've got a mulish expression on your face that says no matter what I order you to do on company time, you're going to be working this case on your own."

Andi tried not to frown at him. She did _not_ look mulish! And he was far too perceptive for his own good. She opened her mouth to deny everything he was saying but Gordon cut in before she could.

"Don't bother lying; I know the stubborn ones when I see them, and you're one of the worst. It's what makes you so good at your job. I want you to consider this, though. Fanatic or not, killer or not, the Batman _has_ done good for Gotham too. More than you or I ever will. I know he's killed Dent, and my family's been through hell with some of the stuff that's happened because of him. But when you count up the cops he's killed, also remember the number who wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him. Myself included."

He left her lab as quietly as he had come, leaving a very confused Andi to pick up her papers.

* * *

"I've been gone too long. The streets are getting restless."

Gordon didn't jump _quite_ as hard as Taylor had when he'd walked into her lab, but it was a close thing. He'd come here hoping to see the Batman—he seemed to know the nights when Gordon was at MCU and preferred to show up there rather than his office at county or any of the other units. But for him to be here after two weeks of silence…

"Did Bailey really shoot you?" he asked. The Batman just gave his usual glower and Gordon sighed.

"The force is angry at me for suspending him, even if it was just for three weeks and he shot you in the back. Lucky for you forensics didn't find anything at the crime scene, but a couple of them have been sifting through your files again. And I suspect one of them managed to get information from something already in there." Taylor had given up those files _far_ too easily; she must have already found something that she could now study on her own. And he knew that once she had been pointed in the right direction, Taylor wouldn't quit until she had dragged Batman in front of a judge.

"Who?"

"Trace analyst named Andrea Taylor that I hired back when MCU formed two years ago. She quit med school to join us." Gordon paused as he saw the Batman jerk in surprise, his mouth twist strangely. "Do you know her? Asian features, maybe five foot seven, about thirty?" Batman didn't say anything but Gordon could tell he was unhappy about something. Not just unhappy. The Batman never followed such tepid emotions. No he was furious and, as Gordon knew from experience, when the Batman was angry other people tended to get hurt. "She's one of the people I trust most here," he said hastily, "Very passionate, very idealistic. To be honest, I think if she just knew the truth about you—"

"No." If anything, Batman's scowl deepened. And Gordon realized that the thing he feared most in Batman's expression was not the anger, but the subtle hints of worry leaking through his usual iron control. His arms were folded and he actually started pacing up and down the office. Gordon stayed quiet.

"How good of a scientist is she?" he barked eventually.

"She's… well, frankly, she's got a lot of talent," Gordon admitted, "She's quick-thinking and very analytical. The whole reason I've never let her look at the case files before is because I think she might be the one person on the forensics team who could catch a detail others missed. And she's dedicated. She won't get off your case no matter that I've taken the files on you back."

Batman abruptly seemed to realize that he was pacing and deliberately stopped, leaning back against the wall. "I'll look into her. What else?"

"Well, we've had a serial killer loose lately…" Gordon began pulling out sets of notes and crime scene photos, trying to shake off the feeling that he had just betrayed Taylor. She couldn't have been _that_ much of a threat to Batman after all. But Gordon also would do whatever was necessary to protect Gotham and, unfortunately for Taylor, that included letting Batman know what she was up to. He wouldn't hurt her after all.

Gordon glanced again at his friend's stony face and very much hoped that he was right about that.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Oooh, the storm clouds gather...

For anyone who's interested, my profile now has cast-listings of actresses that I think Andi, Pam, and Leena look the most like. My opinion's pretty biased, of course, but _I_ like how they turned out. Be sure to tell me what you think!

As always, a huge shout out to **Thinker90, SerendipityAEY, ****A Last Kiss For Succubus**, and** xxscarlet** for putting me on story alert and **A Last Kiss For Succubus** for favoriting! If it wasn't a creepy/stalkerish thing to do and I wasn't coughing up a lung right now, I'd bake you all bat-shaped cookies! As it is, I guess I'll just have to eat them all myself. Oh well.

Reviewers are and always will be my heroes. I'm not sure that you're up there with the Gipper quite yet, but you definitely give the Four Horsemen a run for their money in my book! (And anyone who knows who I'm referencing here gets even more points).


	5. Lost

**Chapter 5:** Lost

"Remind me again just _why_ you had to have me tour a construction site with you at seven o'clock on a Saturday morning."

"I'm adding to Gotham's soil database." Andi handed Pam a plastic jar while she pulled on a pair of latex gloves. "It's shockingly small and I wanted to help expand it." It was a long shot that she would stumble across a match to the cave. No telling how far underground that had been, and soil could change several times in an acre, especially with all of the pollutants in Gotham and no rare chemicals in her sample. Still, she was short on other ideas, and it was a chance to talk to Pam, something she'd been needing lately. With the Batman loose, Andi's friendships had subconsciously been moved down a step on the ladder of importance. She was determined to fix that mistake, starting today.

Pam sighed but obligingly held the jars while Andi dug around, collecting soil and rocks from several different areas in the site before she was satisfied. "Why didn't you invite Leena?" she asked as they were leaving and Pam unlocked her car. "I mean, aside from the fact that we're trespassing and climbing over chain link fences to get these."

"I did, but we'll meet her at the hiking trails, our next stop."

"We're going hiking?" Pam suddenly didn't sound so put out.

"Mm-hmm. I was going to just invite you for that, but I wanted to talk to you beforehand."

"About what?"

"Leena." Andi's hands shook a little bit at the name. "I haven't been around to talk with her lately, but I know she started with the Joker last week. How has she been doing with him?"

They had carpooled in Pam's hybrid, plastered with environmental bumper stickers, and she carefully pulled onto the interstate's light traffic before she answered.

"It's difficult to say. Leena still seems the same, mostly, but she won't shut up about the Joker. Even though she's been with him for a week, she still doesn't seem to be _scared_ of him. Or realize that she's never going to reach him. And from what she's said… well, I suspect that he's letting her _think_ she can reach him if she just gives him a little more, lets him into her head a little farther."

"He's toying with her?" Not that Andi hadn't thought of the possibility, but hearing her suspicions confirmed made it worse. Knowing Leena, she probably thought she was actually making a difference with him too. The Joker wasn't just messing with her, he was _laughing_ at her. And in the meantime, Andi had been gallivanting off on her own personal crusade. She felt something poisonous writhe in the pit of her stomach.

"As far as I can tell," Pam growled, hands tightening on the steering wheel. "Can't you or one of your police friends do something?"

"I'm already doing all I can." Andi hoped that was true, hoped that it would be enough. If Leena got hurt and she could have done more… "Most of the cops are limited by legal red tape. But I'm keeping an eye as best I can."

Pam grimaced but subsided and Andi decided to change the topic. "So have you made any progress towards convincing City Hall that they should tighten laws on releasing toxins? I've heard something about a rally being held next week…"

"You heard? That means we're finally getting the word out! Yes, there's a rally Tuesday after next. I doubt it will do anything though—Luthor Corporation and a couple of others have been lobbying hard in the other direction, and they've got the media firmly in their pocket too." Pam sighed. "It always seems like you take one step forward and two steps back doesn't it? The labs have finally got decent funding from the government for the first time in years. And a large grant from Wayne Enterprises. That's something."

"What's it been going towards?"

Pam immediately began to launch into the latest news on how they had been trying to hybridize a rare vine that seemed to immunize against some hallucinogens, soon getting so technical that Andi was forced to just nod and smile. She was glad that Pam seemed enthusiastic, though. Pam's little sister, Ivy, had died of contaminated water back in their sophomore year at GSU, and Pam had been nearly obsessed with finding cures for the poisons and toxins that infested Gotham ever since. That, combined with her dedication to rooting out the bureaucracy she held responsible for allowing the toxins, made Pam get more than a little intense at times. Fanatical probably came closer. Andi had never understood such single-minded devotion until her kidnapping. Now, if anything, she thought she might have a worse case of obsession than Pam did.

They had only driven for ten minutes, but Gotham had suprisingly little in the way of suburbs, and the construction site had already been on the edge of the city. Although Andi knew civilization was a bare five miles away, the wildlife park they pulled up to was peaceful, summer wildflowers blooming all around the weathered wooden playground at the entrance, with several trails leading into a large swath of woods. At this early hour it was deserted except for Leena, who sat waiting for them on one of the swings.

"Andi! How have you been?" She called out the second they were out of the car, Andi shouldering a backpack bulging with empty plastic jars for the soil. "Pam's been at me like a mother hen with her last chick, but I haven't had a real conversation with you since you stopped by Gotham General. Has work been hectic?"

"Never mind me, how are you?" Andi asked seriously. Leena's smile faded slightly, and without it Andi saw that she looked even paler than usual, shadows forming like bruises under her eyes.

"Worried," she admitted. "The Joker's not exactly been an easy patient. And I haven't been giving nearly enough time to my other patients with him around. He's such a hard case. I think I'm making progress in understanding him, but he's so dark. He thinks… he thinks that the world is all evil, and that my trying to help him see that there's still good is _funny_ of all things."

Pam gave Andi a look that as good as shouted "What did I tell you?" and stalked ahead of them both on the trail. Andi bent to scoop up loam and leaf litter in one jar, filled another with the deeper soil and rocks, then followed with Leena.

"You didn't answer my question though," Leena said, "How has work been?"

"Fine. Nothing as interesting as yours or Pam's," Andi lied, hoping that her face was straight enough. Luckily Leena always trusted you to tell the truth, and Pam hadn't realized yet that anything out of the ordinary was going on.

For reasons that she couldn't fully justify, Andi had decided against telling either of them about her experience with the Batman. Sure, Leena already had more than enough on her plate with the Joker. And, yes, if Pam ever found out she would probably not let Andi leave the house without assigning her an armed guard. But it still felt _wrong_ not to be talking to her two best friends about the most important thing in her life right now, especially when she knew it was what was distancing her from them. The only thing that kept Andi from choking on guilt was the knowledge that she simply couldn't endanger them, even if it meant keeping secrets. If the Batman ever realized what she was up to… well, Andi didn't want Pam and Leena trying to track him down later from a misguided sense of vengeance or something.

"Hey, you two! Look at this!" Pam's voice came from somewhere slightly off the trail. Andi and Leena traded wary glances but followed the sound only to find Pam bending over something that looked very much like a small, ordinary cluster of mushrooms.

"Aren't they extraordinary?" she asked, "I don't think I've ever seen a strain that grew like this. Look, do you see how this one's pileus has those strange curves?"

"I've never seen anything quite like them." Andi agreed obligingly, trying not to think of the mushrooms she'd bought from the grocery store three days ago. Pam pulled out a pocket knife and began to cut away at the base of the rotting log the cluster grew in.

"Can I borrow one of your sample jars Andi?" she asked excitedly, "I've never seen something like this little guy before. If I can get one of them back to the lab…"

Andi handed it over, taking the pause as an opportunity to collect another dirt sample. Leena, who had never really liked the outdoors, took a seat on a fallen log and sighed.

"It's hard to believe we're still so close to Gotham," she said. Andi saw that she was staring at a bright red cardinal—aside from the pigeons in the parks, birds were a rarity in the city.

"The wildlife around Gotham is incredibly diverse," Pam said absently as she carefully tried to slide the mushroom into its jar without it breaking apart. "It's the river combining with the seawater. Plus a bunch of other things. Sometimes I wonder what we're destroying as we keep expanding… Ah, there it goes." She put the lid onto the jar and carefully tucked it into her purse. "Come on you two, keep up!" She flitted back towards the path again, for all the world as if she hadn't been the one to cause their detour in the first place. Andi and Leena shook their heads at her and followed more slowly.

* * *

Andi jerked from sleep suddenly, alert as if a fire alarm had gone off in her ear. A glance at her alarm clock showed her that it was still shy of five in the morning, but she couldn't make herself relax. Tension vibrated in her as if she was a plucked guitar string, some sixth sense alerting her to danger.

_ I'm not alone._ Slowly she climbed out of bed, straining her eyes and ears for anything that might give her a clue as to what was happening, bare feet edging carefully along the floor. She didn't know how she knew, but someone else was there with her. She was certain.

The digital clock's red numbers went out, the plug pulled, and Andi's eyes snapped blindly in that direction as she backed up slowly, feeling for the wall, for something solid and safe. _Oh God, oh God, oh God. _It was most definitely a prayer. The wave of fear mounted to a crest in her, broke apart, and she shrieked, turned, sprinted for the door, a light switch—

And a heavily armored arm wrapped around her arms and body from behind, yanked her hard into its chest, while another arm covered her mouth, smothering her scream.

"Don't move or I _will_ hurt you." The voice in her ear was guttural, harsh; somehow it put her in mind of boulders crumbling. Andi was motionless, in that same frozen stance she had seen rabbits hold when a hawk passed overhead. Her frantic pulse and stifled breaths were the only sounds. Slowly the hand released her mouth and Andi unstuck her throat.

"What do you want? I fixed you didn't I?" she asked hoarsely.

"You did," the Batman agreed, "I came for two reasons. First of all, to thank you."

If Andi had been more like Pam, she would have told Batman exactly where he could shove his thanks. Luckily, she was somewhat less suicidal. She cleared her throat instead in an attempt to make her voice less squeaky. "The second?"

There was silence for several seconds. Andi considered trying to break loose but decided that, if he was thanking her, he probably didn't want to kill her. Better not to provoke him then. "You don't like me," he finally ground out, "But you agreed to help me anyways. Why?"

Andi shifted slightly and felt him tense, grip tightening. Apparently he didn't plan on letting her move an inch, even to face him. Smart man—she had been trying to turn enough to bite, leave her teeth marks on his skin. "I wouldn't expect you to understand it," she told him. "But it was the right thing to do."

"And is hunting me down also the right thing?"

If Andi had been frightened before she was terrified now. He knew what she was doing. But he was quiet, apparently expecting an answer, and Andi was _not_ going to back down just because she was afraid. She had known this might come when she decided to start tracking him. Her choice was made.

"Yes," she whispered fiercely, and somehow it was easier to keep going once she had started. "Yes it is. You've murdered and hurt other people. Worse, you betrayed Gotham when it needed you most. You need to be brought to justice and if you won't turn yourself in, I'll make sure they find you."

"Is there any way to convince you to stop?"

Andi swallowed hard, but for some reason she was more afraid of showing her fear now than of what he would actually do to her. She was a dead woman anyways. Might as well try not to be a dead coward at least. "I'm not a corrupt cop you can buy off," she hissed. Defiantly, to cover her shaking voice. "I won't leave it alone. No matter what you do to me."

"Fine." he growled, suddenly releasing her and shoving her hard. Andi barely got her hands out in time to break her fall, her breath rammed from her chest, and it was several seconds before she could roll over and force her legs to support her. She tried to keep herself from wondering how long she would last if he decided to try breaking her. Or if she would even survive until tomorrow.

But he didn't do anything, didn't move towards her again. Andi suddenly realized that she couldn't even hear his breathing. She crept over to the light switch, and when she flicked it on, the only clue she could find that he had been there at all was her open window.

_ He let me go?_ _Why?_ Surely he wasn't going to just let Andi track him down. Still shaking, Andi wrapped a robe around herself and went into her kitchenette to make coffee. No way was she going back to bed.

By the time the machine had finished brewing, some of Andi's shock had worn off. She crossed to the patched old sofa and flicked on her TV, more for its reassuring background noise than because she thought there would be anything interesting on at five in the morning. In the state she was at, she doubted anything short of a national disaster would catch her attention right now.

_ Alright. Think,_ she ordered herself as she tossed the coffee down without paying any attention to its lack of sweetener or scalding temperature. If med school hadn't already taught her to just swallow the stuff, two years working for MCU would have.

_ He wouldn't have let me go unless he thought I would never reach him._ Andi slowly turned the thought around in her head, holding it up and examining it as if it was fine crystal. It seemed to hold true. But he knew she was tracking him. And he wasn't going to kill her. Which meant that he had no idea just how much evidence she had gathered or…

Andi's mug dropped from her hands but by the time it hit the floor, she was already up and dashing for her room to pull on some clothes. Either Batman didn't know how far she'd gotten _or he was going to make sure that she never went any farther._ Could the Batman get into her lab? Stupid question. He was the Batman. He could get anywhere he pleased. Could she get there first? Not likely but she had to try.

* * *

Even at six AM on a Sunday morning, a skeleton crew was still manning the police building and Andi didn't have any trouble getting into the lab. Once there, though, she could only stare in dismay.

It didn't look that different. Anyone who hadn't known what to look for probably wouldn't have noticed much out of the ordinary. But Andi could tell. Her meticulously collected soil samples for the database were gone, as was the original. Her mass spec and other equipment that recorded the information they provided had had their memories cleared. Every file folder related to the Batman had vanished, and when she switched on her computer, it was to find her anti-virus software screaming that something had attacked and erased everything that vaguely referenced the Batman. Even the small whiteboard she'd used for brainstorming had had its scribbles replaced with a neatly drawn bat silhouette in black marker. Andi erased it furiously, scrubbing at the board long after its faint shadow had disappeared.

There were still a couple things she could check, but Andi knew it was all gone. She sat down hard in the folding chair, buried her face in her hands. Somehow she felt even more shocked, violated almost, than when Batman had shown up in her room. She had expected that in a way, made her peace with the risks she was taking by tracking him. But for him to go into her lab, to just rip away all her hard work…

"You think you've won. You think you can get away with this," she whispered at last through gritted teeth. "Well I'm not giving up. The only person calling off this chase, Batman, will be me."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Major kudos to **LOTL Stephanie.L, vertigirl, Elientjeuh, **and **Deer of the Sea **(love the screenname by the way) for putting _Unmasked_ on Story Alert, and especially to **Ellmarr, **and **softballlover268 **for favoriting!

On a (random) side note, I just finished the book _Mockingjay_ by Suzanne Collins! Yay for college keeping me behind on my reading! If any of you haven't read the _Hunger Games_ trilogy I would highly recommend it; it's a fast moving adventure story that makes you pulse with adrenaline like nothing else.

I think there needs to be a new word entered into the dictionary that will tell how great reviewers are, but for now I'll just say that y'all are the best! Any and all criticism or encouragement (even flames if you think I deserve them) is very much appreciated.


	6. Found

**Chapter 6: **Found

_ British man says wife is sick. I follow him to car, he knocks me out with chemical. _Andi hesitated, then underlined 'chemical' with her felt-tip pen. If there was ever some way she could identify it… well, it was something.

_ This really is hopeless isn't it?_ Andi made herself push the thought aside and continued writing. _I wake up to British man and African American man debating. Laid on floor. Could clothes have soil on them that can be re-analyzed? _ She paused again, then abruptly flung her pen down and ripped the page from her notebook, wadding it into a little ball and hurling it at her overflowing recycling bin. She really was grasping at straws if she was trying to analyze chemicals she had inhaled weeks ago or examine what was left of the clothing set after the Batman had stolen anything that had been in her lab. Her entire case was in tatters: back up files, the evidence itself, database hits, everything was gone, and without it Andi knew deep down that there was little she could do.

She massaged her temples against the headache that hadn't really faded for days now and gave up for the night. It was only a little past ten, but Andi knew from long experience when her mind had had enough. She got up and washed what was left of the dishes, the hot water and mechanics of the routine like a soothing ointment on her irritated mind, then poured her fourth cup of coffee and curled up on the sofa, wondering if she would sleep at all. Ever since the Batman had appeared in her apartment she hadn't managed more than three hours a night, usually caught in one hour bursts on the couch. She didn't feel safe in her dark bedroom anymore.

The stress and exhaustion had begun to affect her regular work too. Several times she had caught her boss and co-workers watching her strangely, and she always had trouble focusing on even the simplest tasks unrelated to the Batman. Andi knew she was becoming obsessed with the case, but after the break in, the whole thing had become personal to her. She simply couldn't make herself pull out. Perhaps she should talk to Leena.

Mostly to take her mind off of the idea—if anyone in Gotham didn't need more stress right now, it was Leena—Andi switched on the news, thinking vaguely that they might have something on the Batman that would catch her eye.

"Stage one water restrictions are being considered unless it rains in the near future, and unfortunately, folks, it looks like we'll be signing up for those soon. Once again, there's no rain on the radar tonight." The weatherman smiled awkwardly at the camera before it shifted to an overlarge map of Gotham and the surrounding counties. Blank, as he had promised, except for a couple of large, unmoving orange spots. Andi stared at them, stupidly transfixed by the bright color against the gray-green background, then suddenly sat up straight. She knew where those came from. Large numbers of bats, flying out when the sun set and blocking up the radar. _Bats. Andi you idiot! Could it really all be this simple?_

She snatched her laptop from where it was sitting on the table and restarted it, drumming her fingers impatiently while it slowly loaded its welcome screen. Andi didn't remember all the specifics of the data, but she did recall finding bat guano in that soil sample. At the time she'd thought it was little more than an ironic bit of information and hurried on to tracking down other important leads. Now though…

Old radar maps from the weather station gave the locations of Gotham's largest bat colonies, both official and unofficial. Andi printed them eagerly, held them up against the fifteen or so sites she had already circled on the city map as possible locations.

"Yes, _yes, _YES!" It was perhaps a half-mile swath of land, close to Gotham city limits on the northwest side. A large residential area, little pollution, marked on the atlas as being within Gotham's historical district. Exactly what she was looking for. Andi quickly pulled up Google Maps and began searching for possible addresses—

Her jaw dropped, thoughts crashing to a halt as the page finished loading. Wayne Manor? As in _Bruce_ Wayne, the drunken favorite of the tabloids? Gotham's favorite son… and it's worst enemy? She'd have believed the Batman was Paris Hilton first...

_ Hold on a minute. This doesn't have to mean what I think it means._ Andi told herself. _Can't jump to conclusions_. Her heart was thundering, her mind whirring faster than ever, but she forced herself to take several long breaths before outlining what she knew. So the location was probably built on his land. So Wayne certainly had enough money to finance the whole operation. Did that mean he had to _be_ the Batman? Or could he simply be the moneybags behind the thing? It was even possible that he had been conned somehow or that someone close to him had siphoned off his money and was funding the Batman on his own with Wayne as a front. He certainly sounded idiotic enough for it from what she had heard.

So what to do?

_ Alright. First establish the connections._ Wayne had reappeared a couple of years ago right? When had Batman first been noticed by the police? Andi pulled up Wikipedia and started referencing…

* * *

Two hours later, she was convinced. It was all circumstantial, nothing that a court of law would even think of considering, but Andi was positive. The clincher had been the tabloid headings from the day after Batman had been shot, claiming that Wayne had suddenly decided to visit Africa for several weeks, taking the five newest _Victoria's Secret_ models with him. Officially, he hadn't returned yet, but that made sense to Andi. If he was still feeling the aftereffects of his surgery, it would be best to retire at least one of his personas so that he could get extra rest. And if Batman's schedule and Bruce Wayne's aligned too closely, people were bound to get suspicious.

After that, it had been easy enough to track down the masked man. Lucius Fox, the CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Andi had found clips of him on YouTube from a speech he had given a few months ago. The voice was unmistakable.

For all that she had seen his face, the British man had been the hardest to find. Even now, Andi wasn't one hundred percent sure—Alfred Pennyworth was very camera shy—but he had apparently been working for Wayne for years and was a British immigrant of about the right age. It all fit. It all fit so well that Andi was surprised no one had figured it out before.

The only thing that really bothered Andi was the thought of Coleman Reese, that man the Joker tried to have killed during his reign of terror. Reese had been ready to give away the Batman's identity too, at least until the Joker's threat caused people to try assassinating him to protect their hospitalized relatives. It had been Wayne who had stopped one of those very attacks—the press had been all over his 'heroism.' Why? If he was the villain all of Gotham believed him to be, why would he have saved the man trying to betray him mere hours before going on a rampage and killing cops and civilians?

Andi shook her head. She wasn't going to try getting into the mind of a psychopath. That was Leena's job. Perhaps Batman simply hadn't decided at that point that he was going to turn against Gotham and what he had once supported. Or perhaps he thought he could use Reese. Whatever the reason, Andi was not going to let him get away with his other crimes because of his mercy there. This man needed to be brought to justice.

At that thought, all of the questions and worry Andi had been stalling against flooded in. She knew who the Batman was now, was as certain as if he'd flown into her room again and removed his mask. But without her forensic evidence, without any real proof whatsoever, how was she supposed to get anyone to believe her?

Half of her, the half that was most like Pam, wanted to go in with guns blazing and hang the consequences. The other half, the one that was more like Leena perhaps, wanted nothing more than to pretend this knowledge didn't exist. But Andi was neither of her friends, and neither of their solutions would work for her. What if she tried to do something else then? What if…

A yawn broke past her jaw. Slightly surprised at the noise, Andi leaned her head back and realized that she was tired—not her habitual tense exhaustion, but a healthy worn out weariness—for the first time in far too long. Finding Batman's identity had relaxed the those tight knots her mind had been snarled in.

_ I'm going to go to bed_, she suddenly decided. Wayne wouldn't know that she'd found out his big secret tonight after all. And her ideas wouldn't work until the morning, when she'd need all of her energy to come out on top.

Curling up in her dark, soft bed for the first time in a week, Andi realized something else. She was no longer afraid.

* * *

"May I help you?" The rather fat security guard somehow managed to look down his nose at her even sitting in his tiny hut. Andi smiled politely.

"Yes please. I'm here to see Mr. Wayne."

The guard just sighed. "Mr. Wayne is still in Africa ma'am. If you had checked those idiot fan sites more often—"

"I'm not asking for a date!"

"Ah. Well then, you can look up his next press conference when he—"

"And I am _certainly_ not a reporter. I just need to get into the Manor." Andi hadn't anticipated _this _problem. All her plans and strategies, and she was going to get stopped by this pompous excuse for a rent-a-cop?

"Look, ma'am, I'm afraid that whoever you are, I can't just allow you in without Mr. Wayne's express—"

Andi lost her patience.

"Listen up mister," she snapped, pulling out her police-issued ID and waving it under his face. "I am an employee of the Gotham City Police Force, and I have reason to believe that there is evidence connecting a wanted criminal to this premises. Now you can let me in nicely or you can wait for me to go get a warrant from a judge and have this whole mess splashed up on the _Gotham Gazette_ tomorrow morning. You'll get to read all about it too because you'll probably be selling those same papers from the side of the street. You sure won't be working _here_ any more at least."

The security guard cleared his throat, looking rather deflated. "I'll have to check with Mr. Pennyworth," he muttered.

"Do it then." She really hoped she was right about this. Hoped he wouldn't call her bluff either; Andi could no more ask for a warrant than she could fly. "Tell him Andrea Taylor is here."

"What does knowing your name matter?" the guard asked sullenly, but he closed the window and picked up the telephone like Andi wanted. After a minute, the wrought-iron gates swung open and the guard grudgingly motioned her in.

Driving up, Andi was reminded of the time in high school that she had braved a school dance only to find that scholarship students like her and those who actually paid tuition had very different price ranges for their dresses. She was in a business suit this time around but she still felt woefully out of place as she took in the newly rebuilt Wayne Manor, sitting square in the middle of its neatly clipped lawn. She parallel-parked her rundown car between a pair of stretch limos on the circular gravel drive and suddenly snorted at her own nervousness. Here she was, about to confront both the Batman and one of the most powerful businessmen in the world all rolled into one, and she was afraid that she was too grubby for the occasion of all things.

Still, climbing up the long flights of imposing stone steps did nothing for her confidence.

One of the doors swung open to reveal an elderly, stiff-backed older man. Andi's insides felt like they had suddenly separated, heart swooping, stomach dropping with dread, as their eyes met. Alfred Pennyworth. The British man who had drugged and kidnapped her. She was right. She was right about everything. Andi found herself eyeing him warily and suspected that, beneath the comportment of a proper English butler, he was doing the same to her. She tilted her chin up the tiniest bit and tried to match his cool self-possession.

"Miss Taylor," he said formally, "If I could take your purse?"

"Thank you, but I'll hold onto it." Both her cell phone and keys were in there. Andi knew she'd go down quickly if things turned ugly, but she still wanted to at least pretend that she would have a chance to run for her car.

"Of course." Pennyworth spoke politely, but Andi could almost hear the tension between them ratchet up another notch. She was not letting them dictate the terms to her. She was coming in to fight, and the pretense that this was merely a social visit faded fast as she refused to back down.

"If you would come with me then please," the butler said brusquely. Andi wondered if she was like a fly being asked in for a visit by the spider, but reminded herself that if that was what it was she was already caught. Wayne could kill her just as easily here as he could anywhere if that was his plan. Not at all reassuring, but logical enough to get her through the door.

Surprisingly, though, Pennyworth just led her into small, elegantly furnished sitting room with decorations that Andi suspected were even more valuable than they looked. Hard to believe that the entire Manor had been rebuilt; she could still feel the weight and character of the house, as if it too was a living thing. One that didn't appreciate the intrusion any more than its inhabitants did. "Please take a seat," Pennyworth said politely, "Master Wayne will see you in just a moment."

Andi was left for what seemed to be the longest five minutes of her life. After a slow count to sixty, with nothing happening yet, she stood and began pacing. She half expected to hear gunfire or see Wayne and his butler through the tall windows, frantically throwing suitcases in one of the limos in an ill-planned escape attempt.

Neither happened though. Instead, on the point of going insane from the tension, her straining ears caught footsteps. Andi turned from the window just in time to see Bruce Wayne himself stride in, dressed impeccably in a coat and tie.

For a minute they simply stared at each other. Andi had tried to picture this meeting a thousand times, but all her planning had dissolved whenever she tried to think of what to do at this point. Somehow, though, she was not incapacitated by fear as she had expected to be. She calmly arched an eyebrow and her voice was steady, cool even.

"Mr. Wayne. I must say that you were much more intimidating in your other suit."

* * *

**Author's Note: **Sorry that review responses aren't out yet; I'm firmly convinced that the professors collaborate so that every single class will have an exam/reports due in the same week. With an organic chem test tomorrow, I just didn't have time to both post and respond. I figured y'all would prefer an update to the responses, but I promise that those'll be up this weekend!

And over 1,000 views this month? Seriously? Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU, especially to **IHaveCookieInMyEye, Acara Otanbi, MischievousAngel0923,** and **Lacers** for favoriting, along with **SmarahSmarshmellow, ChedderPepper, wtchcool, **and **angelvoice15** for putting this on story alert. As always, thoughts, comments, suggestions, simple 'I read it's and even scathing remarks are always welcome!


	7. Confrontation

**Chapter 7:** Confrontation

For several seconds, Wayne just stared at her. Then he sighed out slowly and sank into a seat.

_ He's as nervous as I am._ Andi realized. The thought gave her courage and somehow she was in complete control of herself as she perched on the velvet chair opposite him. The worst was over. He could kill her or hurt her or whatever, but the masks were off. Andi had shown her hand.

Now she just had to see if the cards were high enough.

"How did you find out?" he asked quietly.

"Does it matter?"

"I suppose not." Wayne's face straightened, his shock covered beneath a façade of casual refinement. He looked every inch the careless billionaire. "Is there any way I could convince you not to tell?"

"You turning yourself in." If anything, Andi's tone only hardened at his relaxation. She was _done_ playing games with this man. "That's what I've come for. I don't agree with you at all, but something somebody said…" _Sorry Gordon,_ she thought, _This is the best balance I can offer. _ "I think you're trying to do the right thing. Well, I'm offering you a chance to go with honor, if you have any left."

Wayne raised his eyebrows. "Quite the bargain," he said dryly, "But if we're going to start doing business at this hour of the day, I think want a drink before I go any further. Alfred?"

_ A drink? _Andi could hardly believe it. Here this man was, his world crumbling down around him, and all he could do was call his butler to bring him a glass of something and politely inquire if Andi wanted anything too. Pennyworth ignored her short denial and brought her a glass of champagne anyways, along with several different types of sandwiches cut neatly into triangles. Andi was baffled until she caught Wayne's slightly-too-casual glance.

_ He's trying to put me off balance,_ she realized. _That and make me believe he's not a threat, just a playboy who needs some therapy_.

"Now, Miss Taylor," Wayne said once he had taken a long swallow from his fluted glass. He pretended not to notice the way Andi refused to touch hers. "I think you're bluffing. Why should I believe that you have anything that would stand up as evidence in court? Especially after I stole all of your initial forensics."

Blunt. Andi decided to return the favor. "I don't," she admitted, "But I have enough to catch the media's eye. And your career as the Batman, if not your life, will end pretty quickly once the public knows who was responsible for Dent's murder. Whether you go to court or not, your vigilantism will stop."

"Let me get this straight." Wayne leaned forward and his voice deepened, roughened. Not quite to the point of Batman's, but not the refined drawl he had had earlier. He was… forceful. Suddenly it didn't seem so ridiculous that this vapid playboy was the terror of most of Gotham. Even with a drink in one hand and a chicken salad sandwich in the other, everything about him somehow conveyed the same message Andi had gotten when he had shown up in her room a week ago. _Danger_. "You think that I am a murderer. You think that I will stop at nothing so long as I can feel like I'm a hero. And you came here, alone, to confront me, leaving no substantial evidence or clues to what had happened if you suddenly disappeared?"

Andi tossed her head. "Of course not. I'm not an idiot. I sent files of my work to several different people and they'll look into them if I don't come back soon. If this turns into a kidnapping or murder investigation, my loss would be enough for the police to arrest you regardless of the lack of evidence on Batman."

Actually, she had only given the files to one person, but Wayne didn't need to know that. Pam or Leena would have opened any such work immediately, sure that she was in danger, and the last thing she wanted was one of them dragged into this. Commissioner Gordon had been the only person Andi could think of who might do what she asked. She hoped that his reluctance to condemn the Batman meant that he would wait an appropriate length of time before jumping to any conclusions and storming in with the cavalry like either of her friends would have done. Hoped, too, that his loyalty didn't go so far that he would just let her disappear and not say anything if Wayne attacked her anyways.

"Hmmm." Wayne leaned back again but Andi saw the way his eyes followed her every twitch. Despite his casual posture, she guessed that Wayne was holding himself as tense and ready as a coiled spring. The sense of danger dimmed but didn't relent this time.

"What if I told you that I wasn't a murderer?" Wayne asked suddenly.

"I'd say you were lying."

"Fair enough." Wayne sipped at his drink but his eyes stayed fixed on her, caught her in an iron staring match. "Whatever you and I say, though, the facts won't change. Look into the forensics of the case. You might be surprised at what you find there."

"I already tried," Andi admitted, "When I was trying to track you down I hoped there might be some clue to your identity in the files. But the forensics were never really examined. You committed the crimes right in front of Commissioner Gordon. It was an open and shut crime, so the police got shoddy—county's people really are incompetent and MCU couldn't do it properly for them since our building was gone."

"Did you ever think that Gordon might have been the one lying?"

Andi's mouth flattened. She had guessed that this man was depraved, but for him to blame _Gordon_ for framing him? Just where did he get off? "Despite everything you've done, the Commissioner has been your strongest ally in the force." She made her voice stay rational. She was the one in control. "Why do you think he would want to lie and betray you?"

"Because I asked him to." Wayne set his glass down and leaned forward, his intensity rekindling. Not danger, precisely, but… strength. He wanted Andi to believe him and he was projecting all of the considerable force in his personality to try to convince her. "It wasn't me, but I knew who it was. And I didn't want him to have his name smeared, so I took the blame. Gordon hated it, but he agreed to help me pull the ruse off. It worked rather well."

"Say this person existed." Andi didn't know why she was playing along, but she did anyways. "Why did you not want others to know about him? Did you think he had a good reason for killing Dent and the others?"

"No." Wayne seemed to be measuring her with his eyes. "It was Dent who committed the crimes."

There was a long silence.

"I don't believe you." Andi finally said.

"It's the truth."

"If it's the truth, why didn't you tell me when I first started questioning you? Why cover it up in the first place?"

"I covered it up because without its belief in Dent's goodness, Gotham would have relapsed into the slime pit it had been before I came. That was more important than my good name."

"And you didn't tell _me_ because…"

"The best way to keep a secret is for no one to know who doesn't need to. I figured when I took your evidence that that would be the end of it, so there was hardly any need to try to convince you until now."

Andi folded her arms and leaned back in her chair. "So you expect me to believe that Dent turned evil after his injuries, went on a murderous rampage, and ended the fiasco by throwing himself off of a building?"

"No. I did do that last part." Wayne's gaze finally broke from hers and he looked down at his hands. "It was the first time I ever killed a man," he admitted, "For all my fighting experience, I'd never taken a life before."

"Why did you do it?"

"He was on the point of killing Gordon's son. He blamed Gordon for—for his fiancé's death and wanted to pay him back in kind."

Andi wanted to speak, but she made herself wait until Wayne looked at her again. His eyes seemed to pin her where she sat.

"You still don't believe it."

"It's awfully… convenient," Andi said. "I mean, the man is dead now, so all I have is your word. I know you're an excellent actor since you've fooled Gotham for so long. And after you had me kidnapped, broke into my house, and stole my evidence, I'm a little short on trust to say the least. Especially since I'm a threat to you and you'd say anything to get out of this mess."

"So don't take my word for it. Ask your Commissioner." Wayne shrugged. "If you make it clear that you've found the Batman and that I told you about what happened with Dent, he'll confirm it. From everything you've said, you trust him."

Andi's forehead knit as she watched him. Much as she hated to admit it, Wayne's logic and story did make some sense. His suggestion that she go to Gordon was either the indication of truth or a very brazen gamble. If there was a chance he was innocent, could she really let him get pulled down?

On the other hand, it could be a trap of some kind. Maybe Wayne wanted her to reappear, to make those who had the dirt on him think that everything had been smoothed over, and then take her down later, when nobody would believe that he was responsible.

Before she could come up with an answer, there was a knock and Pennyworth poked his head into their parlor. "If you'll excuse me, sir, there's a bit of a situation on the television that I think you should see."

"Not now Alfred." Wayne's hard gaze on her didn't flicker. Andi summoned up all of her natural stubbornness and refused to let herself shift under it like a guilty child.

"Pardon me Master Wayne, but I wouldn't have interrupted unless it was urgent."

_ Master Wayne?_ Andi thought as Wayne nodded reluctantly, and stood up. _No wonder this guy's got a God complex._

"I'm coming too," she announced. Wayne shot her a look that was halfway between amused and exasperated.

"Don't trust me Miss Taylor?"

"Not a hair." She followed on the pair's heels to a much more modern room dominated by a flat screen television that stood at least as tall as she did. GCN was on, showing several blazing skyscrapers in the area that looked vaguely familiar to her… the Narrows she thought. Not too far from where she'd grown up. Andi froze as she saw the blaring headline:

_ Mayhem at Arkham_.

The butler crossed to the remote and turned the volume up as the shot swiveled to a near-hysterical reporter. "As you can see, the blast has affected several nearby buildings as well as Arkham itself," she shouted at the camera, "A—Authorities inside the asylum are refusing to confirm eyewitness reports that the Joker is behind this, but admitted that the maximum security ward was affected by the blast. No word yet on injuries or fatalities, but just looking at the area it's a pretty good guess that—hold on, we've got new footage coming in from an outside security camera. It's streaming live."

Neither Wayne nor his butler looked at Andi as she slowly sank onto one of the sleek leather seats. Something in her mind felt suspended, waiting for news one way or the other before it would allow her to react.

The footage cut to another scene, a grimy back alley that was filled with smoke. After a few seconds, the Joker lurched into view, carelessly dragging someone else with him, blonde head locked under his arm despite her desperate struggles.

"NO! Oh God, Leena!"

"Do you know that woman?" Wayne demanded, turning to face her. Andi's eyes were locked on the screen.

The Joker seemed to notice the video camera and shuffled over to face it. Leena was dragged with him, her struggles becoming wilder and more terrified every second. He finally seemed to notice when a kick flailed into his knee, and released her neck to grasp her tight around the waist with one arm. His other hand tugged one of hers from where she was covering her face and made it wave at the camera. _Like a spoiled child with a doll,_ some distant part of Andi's mind noted with disgust. The Joker turned to Leena and, with an exaggerated attempt at coyness, bent towards her ear and whispered something. Leena didn't appear to pay any attention except for shaking her head even more frantically and the Joker's volatile temper broke. He slapped her hard across the face, jarred Leena's other hand off. Face streaked with tears and blood, like an angel captured by the devil. _Leena, Leena, why couldn't you have LISTENED to my warnings?_

Abusing her friend seemed to excite him somehow. He slackened his facial muscles and began shaking his head at the camera, tongue lolling grotesquely from his scarred mouth. His fingers dug into Leena's short hair, jerked her head back and forth too. Leena's hands were clawing at his, she was trying to move, trying to breathe—the Joker suddenly released her, stroked her cheek clumsily with the back of his hand. Blood from Leena's cut lip smeared across her cheek. She stayed still now, just sobbing, didn't resist when the Joker lifted her hand again and drew it across her own throat. He giggled and pulled her away with him as something else blew up behind them, sending the camera into fuzz.

The reporter reappeared, but Andi was already moving. She didn't know when she had grabbed them, but somehow her car keys were in her hand and she was sprinting for the door when Wayne caught her by the elbow and pulled her around to face him. From the wide set of his eyes, he was only slightly more in control than she.

"Do you know her?" Andi wrenched backwards, but his grip was strong. "_Listen to me_. I can help her, but I need as much information as I can get. Who is she?"

"Get the hell off of me!" Andi snarled. Wayne's hold tightened instead and Andi decided that the fastest way to get him to let her go was to just tell him the truth.

"Her name's Dr. Harleen Quinzel. She's the Joker's psychiatrist. And one of my best friends."

Wayne nodded and released her. "Alright, listen, I want you to stay—"

The door slammed behind her and cut off his voice. Andi streaked through the mansion for her car, already speed-dialing Gordon's number, praying that he would pick up his phone.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yes, I know Batman doesn't really drink alcohol, but Andi doesn't, and we're seeing it in her POV. Alfred probably just gave Bruce something like carbonated grape juice and got Andi alcohol in the hopes that she'd take some and lose a bit of control.

Thanks y'all for being so patient about the review responses! I think I've got all of them now by PM or counter-review, but if I missed you just tell me. Also, I generally respond by PMs, but if you'd prefer me to review one of your stories instead, just say so and I'd be more than happy to.

Lots of people to thank this week, so hold onto your hats folks. Grazie mille a **claudiabinader, Sapphire34, Bkcbookworm,** and **Sanis-chan** for favoriting Unmasked, **Mearrha Eard, Artemis 1922, **and **akunamatata **for putting me on story alert, and **Ayleim** for favoriting me as an author!

There's a hungry monster living in my basement who demands I feed him either Irish football victories or lots of reviews if I want him to not go on a rampage. Since we've been on a bit of a losing streak (1-3 guys? Really?), please either try out for the ND football team or leave a review! Opinions on the Joker, especially, are very much appreciated; he's _horribly_ difficult to write!


	8. Inferno

**Chapter 8:** Inferno

The moment the door slammed behind Taylor, Bruce snapped into action.

"Alfred how quickly can you tap into her phone?"

"Master Wayne?"

"Just do it Alfred. And call me in the cave as soon as you do." Bruce was already racing for the library's concealed entrance, the Underground Railroad elevator. Despite the safer and more modern routes Alfred had installed, that was still the fastest way to the cave.

He had just finished suiting up when Alfred's voice came over the intercom. "Miss Taylor's phone should be playing in your helmet's headpiece sir."

Bruce flicked it on, started up the re-created Tumbler. Taylor was calling somebody and he had a very good idea who. Nobody answered; it switched to voicemail seconds after he burst from behind the waterfall. She wasn't the sort to give up, though. After three more tries someone finally picked up.

"Who is this?" Bruce recognized Gordon's voice on the other line.

"Commissioner." Taylor's voice was raw and Bruce was forcibly reminded of himself that hellish night when he had raced to save Rachel's life. Tried and failed. He couldn't let it happen again. "It's Andrea Taylor."

"Taylor I don't have time right now for your vendetta against the Bat—"

"I know where the Joker is sir."

There was the slightest pause on the other line. "Know? How could you know?" Gordon's voice had sharpened with surprise, but Bruce nodded to himself. He'd suspected something like this; she seemed the sort of person to think two steps ahead of everyone else and if her friend had been seeing the Joker before…

"Lee—Dr. Quinzel. The hostage on the videotape."

"You know her?"

"She's my friend and the Joker's psychiatrist. I worried that something like this might happen to her, so I added a good-quality GPS to her cellphone weeks ago, when she first got assigned."

"Where can I check up on it?"

"It sends its signal to both my work computer and another tracker, which is what I'm using." Taylor paused and Bruce guessed that she was double checking. "It looks like they're in a skyscraper on the east side of downtown Gotham. Wayne Tower, I think." Bruce's hands jerked slightly on the wheel and he could hear the frown in her voice, probably wondering if the Joker had figured out Batman's identity to have chosen that spot. Bruce knew better. Wayne Tower wasn't the tallest building in Gotham, but it was the most symbolic. The Joker always needed to have the grandest stage for his tricks. "The Joker might move her, of course," she continued, "But wherever he takes her, I'll meet you there."

"Taylor I don't think that that's a good—"

She hung up—probably so Gordon couldn't order her to pull out—and Bruce switched his headset over to Alfred.

"Taylor's got a GPS trace on the hostage. Can—"

"It's being intercepted sent to your car right now sir." Alfred interrupted. Bruce guessed that he had heard Taylor's exchange with Gordon too. "The Commissioner's men are already leaving to find the Joker as well."

Bruce nodded to himself and pushed the Tumbler harder, swerving through the panicked pedestrians and other cars. The Joker _would_ have chosen late afternoon on a Friday—the worst traffic time possible—to break loose. He wasn't used to moving in the daylight, let alone in these packed streets and there wasn't time for this. He needed to get to a roof. The Joker would know he was coming, would be counting on it. He needed to get there before either SWAT or Taylor did, and gave the Joker more hostages and victims.

* * *

Andi threw her car in park before it fully stopped and spared a glance for the top of Wayne Tower. She technically had no way of knowing which floor Leena would have been taken to—the tracker didn't give height or depth, just compass coordinates—but something told her the Joker would have chosen the roof for his performance. The most dramatic, the riskiest...

She was short on time. Gordon was on the way, and if he managed to catch her here Andi knew he wouldn't let her go in. Maybe it would be more sensible to let SWAT manage, but she had to reach Leena before the Batman. To him, Leena would just be a pawn in the great game between himself and the Joker. She needed to protect her friend from getting caught in the crossfire.

Sirens sounded behind her while Andi sprinted into the lobby. Despite her fast pace, the security guards ignored her. Andi had dressed in a business suit for her confrontation with Wayne and she passed muster. The elevators? No. They were filled with people leaving work. Andi refused to get others involved in this and besides, the Joker might have rigged them. Stairs were more reliable and, with all the traffic in and out at this time of day, probably just as fast.

Andi remembered the time back in their college days that Pam had raced, stairs only, all the way up Wayne Tower's seventy-eight stories on a dare. More importantly, she also remembered where Pam had said to find them. She made herself walk rather than run, her manner perfectly assured as she went through a door reading "MAINTENANCE ONLY," then kicked off her heels and began to sprint.

Twenty-three stories up, Andi was regretting her decision to take the stairs. Against her better judgment, she slowed, dropped from taking them three at a time to two, to one. Thirty stories. Thirty-one. Thirty-two. A weak voice in the back of her head was beginning to protest, suggest a pause or going for the elevators, when her ears picked up screams through the thick concrete walls, jolted her back to awareness. Andi sped up, but something blazing dropped right past her at the next window she passed and she had to look.

Below her, both police and civilians were diving for cover as what looked like a rain of fire fell on them from the top of the tower. _Explosives_, Andi realized. _The Joker's tossing them off the roof and keeping anyone from getting out or in._ Leena. Andi was her only chance now if SWAT was pinned down—he was bound to have something to deal with choppers too. She wasn't going to leave her friend to the Joker's mercy.

She turned and kept running, ignoring the screams from people on the floors she passed who only now seemed to realize the danger they were in. More explosions sounded below her, but they became more and more distant as she climbed higher. Even Pam, fit as she was, had been sore for a week after this course, but what Andi lacked in physical strength she made up for with sheer desperation. SWAT would be planning something drastic, the Batman would arrive soon, had to get there first, had to got to Leena—

She sprinted the final five flights and, to her utter relief, found that the maintenance door led out onto the roof. Andi leapt through before her nerve could fail.

From the ground, it had seemed as if Wayne Tower tapered to a point. From here, Andi could see that the pinnacle actually flattened into a small, luxurious rooftop garden, complete with a swimming pool. The roof sloped down and away on every side, giving both an illusion of spaciousness and a dazzling view of Gotham.

It probably would have been charming if the whole place hadn't been chock-filled with explosives.

And if the Joker hadn't been standing in front of her, pressed against the guardrail to watch his handiwork.

"OohahaHAhaha! Look at 'em go, Harley-Quinn!" He trailed off into high pitched giggles as, far below, there was the sound of yet another explosion. His back was to her, engrossed in the horror he was unleashing on the streets. Andi dove behind a stack of dynamite crates before he could turn and find her, then peeked around the side and saw him roll what looked like a full barrel of oil from the top of the building, whooping and hopping from one foot to the other as he watched it fall. Leena, where was Leena in all this?

"IIIIIIII-yuh know an old lady who swallowed a fly!" The Joker started singing. Andi couldn't see her friend from where she was, just the madman as he pranced around the roof, randomly breaking into snorts of laughter and snatches of nursery rhyme as he tossed off more explosives.

"Oh, come on! Lighten up!" he said, suddenly turning his attention away from the chaos to someone hidden behind a cluster of oil drums. There was a shriek and he dragged Leena into view, her face a bloody mess by now, and made her look down the dizzying drop. "See, _they're_ all, um, _catching on!_ Even your friend thinks it's funny doesn't she?" His voice raised to a taunting singsong. "Come out, come out, wherever you are!"

Andi ducked behind the crates again and tried to remember how to breathe. Did he know she was there? Or just suspect? She dumped out her purse and carefully put what forensics training and too many action movies identified as a Molotov cocktail inside. She couldn't blow it up here, not with all these explosives around, but perhaps she could threaten the Joker with it. Slowly she stepped out from behind the dynamite to find the Joker staring straight at her, still holding Leena close.

"Hmmm. And_rea_ Tay-lurrrr." He gave her name the English rather than the Spanish pronunciation Andi was used to. "The loyal best friend." Andi didn't respond. Her mind was spinning frantically, a rat trying to escape its cage. How to get to Leena?

"I was, um, expecting Dr. Quin-zel's _other_ friend too. The red one. Uh, _Pam_." The Joker sounded Pam's name out carefully, almost lovingly and raised his eyebrows at her.

"Andi? Andi _run!_" Leena finally seemed to see Andi standing there and some of the fight returned to her voice. There was a crack as the Joker struck her across the face yet again and Leena subsided with a sob. The Joker giggled.

"IIIIIIIII-yuh know an old lady who swallowed a spider." He began chanting, shaking Leena like a rag doll as he did it. "It _wriggled"_—head snap—"and _jiggled"_—head snap—"and _tickled_ inside—"

Something inside Andi broke. She couldn't light the cocktail, but it was still in her hand as she dashed forward, swung it straight into the Joker's face. It shattered on impact, shards of gasoline soaked glass embedded in his cheeks and chin, and Andi took the split second to jerk Leena free of him get between the two of them.

He whooped and pushed them both to the ground before she could run. Andi landed on top of her friend and curled up over Leena as kicks and random blows began to shower on her.

"Oh, this spider wants to _play_ when she catches her fly!" the Joker cackled, "Then let's see you _wrrrrrriggle!_" Something burning and sharp sliced across Andi's back, her exposed arms and legs, and she found herself screaming before she could stop, curled up as small as she could make herself. Hold onto Leena, protect Leena, had to just—the knife moved to the skin just above and behind her ear, not slashing but _peeling_, trying to scalp her, and her whole body crumpled in agony, shrieks tearing from her throat.

And then it was gone.

Still holding tight to Leena, Andi lifted her head and saw Batman and the Joker… dueling was the only way she could describe it. The Joker hopped and dove madly from spot to spot, while Wayne circled to keep himself between them and the Joker, each of the pair landing blows whenever the other came too close.

"Imagine _that_ she swallowed a _bat!_" the Joker chanted, "She swallowed the bat to catch a spider—"

He pulled out what looked like a huge rifle and shot it, not at Wayne, but behind himself. Rather than firing normally, it sent a huge cable crashing through one of the tall windows of a nearby skyscraper.

"She swallowed the spider to catch the _FLY_—"

Somehow he landed a blow that sent Wayne staggering, and leapt straight into Andi and Leena. Andi tried to hold on, and he kicked her hard in the head. White spots exploded in her vision, something ripped from her hands, and when she could see again she was alone on the ground, the Joker—and Leena with him—standing at the very edge of the tower. Batman had picked himself up, but only watched, apparently unwilling to attack while the Joker had a hostage, even when the Joker pulled out a match and struck it.

The Joker hesitated, looked at Leena curiously, and shrugged. "I don't know why I swallowed this fly." He dropped the match on some of the spilled gasoline and then leapt from the roof yelping, "Perhaps she'll die!"

Something black and heavy grabbed Andi around the waist, there was a dizzy, spiraling sensation, something huge exploded above them, and then Batman and she crash landed on another skyscraper, him on the bottom. She felt him pull on her wrist, tilt her face, made herself croak out, "I'm fine, I'm fine, get Leena!"

He nodded and sprinted away, leapt straight off the rooftop. Andi groaned. Her cellphone was gone, blown up with the top of Wayne Tower. No way to call for help. She pulled an arm behind her bleeding scalp and let her wound rest against it for pressure, but there was little else she could do for herself. Everything seemed fuzzy with that blow to her head and loss of blood, and she couldn't think of anything else to try. She'd done everything she could, and Leena was still left in that monster's clutches. She could hardly move; it felt as if her wounds were sending fire into her bloodstream. Thoughts were slowing. Hard to focus, nothing to focus on anyways. A scent registered on her nose. Gasoline. The Joker had poured gasoline on the knife, that must be why it burned so badly.

With nothing left to do, nothing left to give, Andi's body took the most practical option still left to it.

She passed out.

**END OF PART I**

* * *

**Author's Note:** And y'all thought last week's ending was a cliffhanger.

This week's chapter was a bi— *Remembers her younger readers*...bad... one to write. I actually had the hugest writer's block on trying to figure out just what the Joker would do with Leena and only solved it when I went to my little sister and asked her 'if you had a barrel of oil and two sticks of dynamite, what would you do with it?' She told me she'd throw it out the window, and... well, the idea evolved from there. Anyways, in all seriousness, Heath Ledger as the Joker is little less than sheer brilliance incarnate, and trying to put down those intricacies on paper was nearly impossible for me. I'd really really appreciate feedback on this guy because... well because he's the JOKER. I feel like I should do him justice.

So I'm planning to post a story involving Leena's transformation to Harley Quinn at some point, but I'm a little unsure of how to do it. The way I have things set up right now, I can interweave the story with Andi's and have them play off of each other, or I can write it as a separate short story (I'm hesitant to say one-shot because I always write more than I plan) that would still use my own take on the characters in Unmasked, but be posted separately and you wouldn't necessarily have to read it if you think I screwed up horribly on the Joker and want to read about him as little as possible. Any thoughts?

And how 'bout them Irish? With a much-needed victory last weekend and a record number of reviews to feed it (except for yours Sanis Chan!), I have been able to placate the monster for another week!

Oh yeah! The thank yous! Muchas gracias **lopo479, **and **Limplict** for putting me on story alert, and **ChristianBale Girl 2010, **and **Limplict **for favoriting. Also, I feel like I should give a thank you here to **Secret Identity Girl** for her awesome reviews since I can't seem to message you and say it, along with a thank you to all of my reviewers in general. Every single one of y'all made my week.


	9. The Name Game

**Author's Note:** This is just a quick aside to say that I did decide to post Leena's story in _Unmasked_, which is what this chapter is here. _But_ if you hate the Joker, find it confusing, or simply don't like how I'm doing it, you should be able to skip over Leena's chapters and still understand what happens in the main plot. I should also warn here that Leena's story is gonna be a little more intense than Andi's (hey, the girl's going insane); it's still a T rating, but a half step moreso than the rest of the story is.

* * *

**PART 2  
Chapter 9:** The Name Game

Something heavy kept swinging into Leena's stomach, almost matched the beat drumming through her head and throbbing face. She tried to move away, but her body didn't respond right. Everything reacted slow—even with her eyes closed she was spinning.

The hits to her gut stopped, replaced by a horrible tearing feeling in her scalp as someone yanked her head up by its hair. "Come on sweetheart, c'mon, it's time to get up."

Leena found herself almost nose to nose with him. Fish and mold breathing into her face. White and red paint, scars almost hidden by her blurry vision. "Jay?" She couldn't—what was—she had been going to work this morning—some sort of fire—"What are you doing Jay?"

"I, uh, I _rescued_ you from that asylum. You know. Where they put all the _crazy_ people."

"Arkham?" Leena slurred—she just couldn't remember—_Concussion—_Stringing even a simple sentence—took effort. "You're not in Arkham?"

"No duh Harley-Quinn."

Her skull dropped back to the ground, bounced hard. Her face ached—red on her clothes—blood. "Why… why hurt me?"

Laughter. It jaded—sliced. "Why did you hurt _me?_"

"Didn't. Trying to—to help you."

"Why? Because I'm _crrrrrraaa_-zy?"

"Because you think—people—life—it's all evil." Why so dizzy—no, this was important—throbbing face—had to explain. "Wanted to show you—it's good."

More laughter. Suddenly his hand stroking her cheek. "The thing is Harl that I, uh, I'm no-_t_ crazy. They made a, um, mistake. Poor little me was locked away, but _you_… you were the insane one." Voice lilting—hard to understand—harder to speak—

"_Not_ crazy."

"No?" Chewing sound—smacking lips—"Maybe you think you just see the world, uh, _differently_. But I've got to tell ya, that's what _all_ the crazies think." Giggles. Hand on cheek harder now—fingers prying, digging into her cuts—whimpering, trying to move away—stopped. Whispering in ear.

"Don't worry though. I'll, uh, I'll teach you the _truth_ Harley-Quin."

* * *

Leena woke in the dark. The whirling in her head had stopped. Her thoughts were slow. Choppy. But she could connect them again.

Her head ached. Her face was bruised and bloody. The rest of her too. But Jay had paid special attention to the face.

Everything was still blurry in the dark. A careful probing with her finger told her the contacts were in. Must be the knock in the head then. But she thought she was inside. A huge, empty building. A warehouse? The floor was cold and hard underneath. Concrete. Jay wasn't in sight.

Slow, careful movement let her sit. What had happened? Her memory was as sliced apart as her thoughts. She'd left for Arkham… something had exploded… Andi, something about Andi… did Jay have her too? The knock in her head made everything run together. But if she could think at all it probably meant she didn't have a concussion. That was something.

What did he want with _her?_ What did he mean he'd _teach_ her?

Leena couldn't make herself go back to sleep. After several long minutes, she stood carefully. Her coordination wasn't hurt as badly as everything else was. She could walk. Totter at least. It took effort, but after several stumbles she reached a wall. Leena followed that until she came to a corner. She curled up there, holding her knees to her chest, back to the wall, willing her thoughts to clear. Slowly the room was lit by the rising sun through high up windows.

She didn't know how long it was, but finally one of the huge doors pulled up a very little and admitted Jay. He ignored Leena and instead went into another door across the room from her. Leena thought about running for the exit, but she could barely walk. And if Jay caught her trying to escape…

He came and went several more times that day, never glancing in her direction. At first, Leena tried to curl small and avoid him, but as the day went on something else began to push into her thoughts until even Jay became secondary.

Thirst.

It was horrible, a torture that made its way even into her fogged brain. Leena tried to ignore it, but it was like trying to ignore a bee that was stinging you over and over and _over_ again. Even her other injuries soon blended into a single incoherent bundle of misery, and only her fuzzy head and the awful rawness in her throat stood out any more. Her mouth had been scraped dry with steel wool, sandpaper scrubbed her windpipe with each breath. Her tongue was a dead thing, shriveled, yet still weighing heavy and thick in her jaw with a strange bitter tang on it. Leena closed her eyes and tried to endure, tried not to think, not to feel. Everything started to spin again.

When the light in the windows started to turn red from the sunset, Leena knew she couldn't take it any longer. Jay was skipping out of that other room again. If he left her alone for the night with this torment she'd—she'd—

"Jay." A rasp was all she could come up with, but he somehow heard her and walked over. His gait was unsteady, shuffling and wavering like a drunk's. In Arkham it had been a sign of his weakness. Here it held the deadliness of a lion's prowl with none of its grace. He put his hand on her forehead and tipped it back so that Leena had no choice but to look him full in the face, and traced along her stinging cuts with the fingers of his other hand.

"What is it Harley-Quin?" His nasally voice somehow missed being comical. Eerie somehow.

"Water."

Leena had promised herself she wouldn't beg, but when he quirked an eyebrow she added, "Please Jay. I need water."

He pursed his lips, which twisted his scars sickeningly. Leena had always ignored them when she'd worked with him, but with the paint back on his face it was much harder. She fought down fear. Andi and Pam had been right. He was too dangerous for her to handle. All she could do now was try to survive. That and pray that she had gotten through to him in some way, that what she had tried to show him about mercy might have affected him somehow.

"Why do you call me that?"

"What?"

"Why-y. Do. You. Call. _Me_. Jay?"

_What does that have to do with anything?_ But Leena was desperate. She'd play his game if she must.

"You needed a… a name," she explained, "I wanted to help you realize that not everything has to be like you think it is. Ugly and dark and chaotic. Jay was the name I gave to the… the person I wanted you to become."

Jay stared at her for a second, until his shoulders started to shake. A small snort broke past his nose and he released her head to grab at his sides. Then he was howling with laughter, rolling on the floor, nearly hysterical. Leena shrank away.

"You—you really thought you could save _me?_ That _I_ was just another person. Like—like _you?_ Hehheeheeoo_hoo_hahah." One of his flailing feet connected with Leena's gut and she doubled over, gasping for air, vision doubling again.

In a second he had hopped back up, yanked her straight again by her hair, pulled until he was almost lifting her from the floor. He was toying with her cuts again, but this time his touch was harder, bruising. "You're a good jokester ya know, little Harley."

"Jay—Jay _please—_can't breathe."

He paid no attention. "Sweet—little—innocent—Dr. Leena." He gave her head a hard shake with each word. Her scalp was peeling from her skull, her throat tearing apart from the strain. "Always wants to, um, _help people_. Even if _she's_ the crazy one."

"Jay." Leena was choking and crying all at once, and the salt sent channels of fire along her open wounds. "_I'm sorry Jay_. Just please, please, please _stop_."

He released her so suddenly that she collapsed onto her hands and knees, head down, sucking in air with rattling, pained breaths. Jay stood above her, _tsk-_ing at her of all things, as if she was a badly behaved child. "I really shouldn't be this nice to you Harley-Quin. But I think you mean it. And so ya know what? I'm gonna do ya a _favor_." Leena risked a glance up and saw him nodding wisely to himself, as satisfied as a cat that had caught a mouse. She stayed quiet, afraid of provoking him somehow.

"C'mon, aren'cha even gonna ask what it is? It's a great, uh, _present_ from your Mr. J."

Leena started to shake again. There was more pain coming. She could hear it in his voice. "What—what is it Jay?" Her raspy whisper was nearly inaudible.

"_I_—haha—this is really too good—I'm gonna be _your_ psy-chi-a-trist." He popped the final _t_ like a teenager popped bubblegum.

"What?"

"Ya see little Harley, you're so… so _naïve_ that it's like you're _crazy_. And I wanna, um, _help_ you like you tried to help me." He bent down and tapped a finger against Leena's nose. She made herself stay still. "_So_ I'm gonna teach you every-thing-I-know about being _me_. And when I'm done, you—oh ho ho no, you won't be crazy anymore, no matter what they say."

He turned away, heading for the door, and somehow Leena summoned up the courage and desperation to call after him. "Jay."

The Joker spun back to look at her. "That's _Mr. J_ to you." But he tipped her an outrageous wink as he said it rather than coming back over to abuse her. Leena tried to pretend that was a good thing.

"Water. Please."

"Hmmm… hmmm… _water_ for lit-tle Leena." Jay pretended to consider it, then shook his head. "No. Leena doesn't get water. Only Harley-Quin does."

Warning bells went off in her mind but she wasn't thinking straight enough to really understand him. "What… do you want?"

"Well, we'll start at the, uh, beginning. Say 'My name is Harley-Quin.' C'mon Harls."

_He's doing what I tried to do to him_. The thought somehow pierced through her pain induced haze. _Make me into _his_ idea of a human by giving me a label he invented for me. No. I can't do that. NO!_

"Jay—"

"Sorry that's, uh, one of _my_ names; you can't use it. See you in the morning Harley."

He loped back out, leaving Leena alone with the pain and thirst.

* * *

Leena didn't know how long it was after he left that she finally pulled together the strength to try the exits. The main doors were huge roll up affairs, probably built to allow a semi-truck to drive in and unload. Even in full health Leena would have had trouble moving one. She tried pushing anyways but, whether because they were locked down or simply too heavy, they didn't budge for her. The other doors—a couple of side ones and the one Jay kept going into whenever he came in—were more manageable in size, but firmly locked. The windows were far too high to reach and she remembered from when it was daytime that there were lattices of metal over each. A gigantic prison, but effective.

By the time Leena admitted defeat, her head was spinning worse than ever. For no particular reason she staggered back to the corner she'd stayed in before and curled up there. At least no one could sneak up behind her here. Not that it would make much of a difference. If Jay wanted to hurt her he would.

_Think_. Leena tried, but her latest beating had made coherency and planning harder than ever. _What would Pam or Andi do?_

Well, Pam would probably have tried to ambush the Joker when he came in the next morning. As athletic as she was, and with that year of varsity kickboxing in college, she might even have had a shot to at least get past him long enough to find help or something. But even if Leena hadn't been small and battered, she wouldn't do it. She was a pacifist. No violence. Not even for Jay. Especially not for Jay. He wanted to deprive and abuse her into being like him and Leena wasn't going to let him do it. He wouldn't change her name and certainly not her beliefs. There had to be another way.

What about Andi then? Leena frowned. Andi would probably have figured out a way to escape. Something clever, probably involving those chemicals she knew so much about. Or, if she thought there was no way to get free herself, she would have figured out what else Jay was up to and sabotaged it somehow. If Pam was the tough one, Andi was the stubborn one. She would have broken loose by sheer force of will if she had to.

But Leena? Leena's strength was wholly unlike those of her friends. She had always relied on others' goodness, always believed that there was no one who was so fully evil that they couldn't return to what was right. And while she still believed that that was a remote possibility for Jay, she was also smart enough to know that it would only work with the right therapies and environment. Out here, where he knew he was in charge, she was as likely to talk him into letting her go as a mouse would a cat… there had to be another way out… had to be a way out… had to…

* * *

Everything was hazy. By the light, she guessed it was nearly noon but Jay was nowhere in sight. Either he hadn't come in or he was already hidden in one of the other rooms. She tried to push herself up, but a wave of dizziness and nausea convinced her that that was the wrong idea.

She was so thirsty.

So thirsty.

* * *

She saw Jay pass her by once or twice, but her voice stuck in her throat. Eventually Leena couldn't even remember why she wanted to talk to him. She hovered in a daze that briefly drifted off into sleep only to jerk back to semi-awareness before she could get any real rest. Thirst was all that mattered any more. Water. Heat. So thirsty.

* * *

Darkness. Jay crouched over her. He had something in his hands… it splashed… sloshed… beautiful sound. Leena reached for it and he teasingly held it just out of her reach. "You've gotta say your _name_ first, Harley."

"Please." It was no more than a loud breath with consonants formed around it. Jay ran a hand through his hair and started to click his tongue against the roof of his mouth.

"Oh no no no no no. You're gonna have to play my game if you wanna win the prize."

"Jay…"

"Say it—" Leena twisted away and he jerked her up to face him, pulled her head into his lap. She should have found it terrifying, but her mind couldn't focus on him. Water. He had water. "Anh-tuh-tuh-tuh-tah. You're…" he licked his lips and Leena stared at the glistening wetness on his tongue. "You're _Harley_… If you wanna get _my_ water, you've gotta be _mine_ first. Hmm?"

Leena stayed quiet.

"So how 'bout it?"

_Just a name_. So thirsty…

Jay smacked his lips eagerly, swirled the water in his hands. _Doesn't have to mean anything. Let him think what he wants._

"Harley?"

_Don't do it, don't do it, don't…_ "Yes," Leena breathed, "Harley."

It splashed over her face, cold and wet and pure. Leena closed her eyes, opened her mouth to it like a baby bird. Jay giggled and swished the stream around so that Leena had to chase it with her mouth. All too soon it was gone again and Jay left her in the dark. Leena barely kept herself from calling after him, begging for more.

It didn't mean anything. Really, it didn't. She was still Leena. Really.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ok. The Leena chapters. Originally I was writing these separately from Andi's. I think they do fit better together, but that means a couple of small issues will come up:

1. Leena's timeline and Andi's might be off. I've organized the two stories to be mostly sequential, but the edges are rough; every now and then the two of them have scenes that overlap into the same timeframe, so there might be a few hours difference between the two POVs. If something needs clarification please tell me!  
2. Leena's POV is written in a somewhat different style than Andi's. With Andi, her whole story is a lot of action, a lot of choices and sudden plot twists. Leena's is more a story of her slowly losing herself, getting pushed closer and closer to the edge until... well you don't want me to spoil it do you? Her writing also includes a bit more experimenting with style and trying to get creative with my words, where Andi's story is being told in a straight-to-the-point manner. Anyways, the long and short of it is that there will be some differences reading the two.

Which brings me to my other thing about Leena's story. As you can probably tell reading this post, this is NOT going to be a normal Joker and Harley love story. There are some amazing ones out there (_Bad Jokes_ anyone?), but I don't think I could ever adequately explain how a sane woman falls in love with someone like the Joker and only _then_ goes crazy. Instead, I'm trying out switching the order. 'Jay' is attempting to drive Leena insane, and only after that would any sorts of fireworks kick in.

Anyways. Long winded explanation (no one actually read all that did they?). On to the thank-yous! Merci **undeaddestroyer, mop-n-bucket, Lessien Lossehelin** (wow, that's a mouthful) and **Demon Child Leelian** for story alerting, to **13krirla, Lumihiutale89, **and **Thedarkknight17** for favoriting, and **Melancholy Symphony** for adding me to author alert! Most of all, thanks to my wonderful reviewers for your criticism, feedback, etc. and GO IRISH!


	10. Recovery

**Chapter 10: **Recovery

There was a steady beeping in Andi's ear and her entire body felt abnormally heavy. Soft, somehow distant from her mind. _Painkillers,_ she realized, then drifted again. For a moment, year, millennium, she floated, drifting between consciousness and unawareness until memory abruptly surfaced and anchored her back to the world. Leena. Rooftop. Wayne. Joker.

Andi's eyes flew open and she twisted upright a gasp. Or at least she tried to. Her back only moved a few inches before pain burned its way through whatever she'd been given and made her slump back on her stomach, staring at a blank stretch of pastel green wall. Carefully, trying to ignore the way her head spun, she tilted her body until it rolled to its side, then let her eyes wander around what she quickly realized was a hospital room. It was interesting to see it from the point of view of a patient rather than a med student, but otherwise looked just like any other ward. One in Gotham General she thought—the bland paint and furniture looked pretty new and, thanks to a generous donation from Wayne Enterprises, that hospital had been restored in record time after the Joker blew most of it up.

Gordon was sitting in the visitor's chair, dozing despite the ever-present cup of coffee in one hand. He seemed to notice Andi's eyes on him though, and jerked up after a minute, pushing his glasses back up in front of his eyes.

"How long was I out?" Andi croaked. She had an IV running into the crook of her elbow to keep her hydrated, but her throat was still very dry.

"A day and a half," Gordon said, "I, uh, had them put you on a less strong painkiller. I thought you'd want to know what was happening."

Andi nodded, then stopped at the heady mixture of dizziness and pain that engulfed her skull despite the medicine. It couldn't have just been gasoline on the Joker's knife, not with the raw and burned feeling that ran along her wounds and seeped about an inch beyond and beneath them. Whatever it had been, it had been strong and affected her badly.

"Leena?" she asked.

"Dr. Quinzel disappeared with the Joker. There's no word on where either of them are. By the time SWAT figured out that he'd moved to another building, he had already disappeared. Her cellphone tracker went dead when the roof exploded; it must have been left behind at Wayne Tower."

Andi's eyes slid closed. Leena. Gone. "I tried—I tried to get to her. To protect her," she heard herself say. It seemed very important to explain for some reason, to justify herself. A horrible feeling was beginning to rise up in her, guilt and loss and pain in a mix that was more toxic than the gasoline had been. The corners of her eyes prickled. Leena. Why Leena? What did he want with Leena? Could she have done more?

She heard Gordon shift uncomfortably. Typical male, he seemed to have a phobia of tears and strong emotion. "Are you alright?" he asked, "Too tired to keep going?"

"No." Andi swallowed against the lump in her throat and made herself open her eyes again. She couldn't fall apart, not here in front of her boss. Besides, every time her eyes closed she saw Leena's battered, panicked face again. She couldn't go to sleep, not with that image burned into her skull. "How—how many in SWAT were killed?"

"Twelve. And sixteen civilians." Gordon said, "Several more are in the burn unit, but it doesn't look like we'll lose anyone else. We're lucky the Tower didn't collapse or anything; the top floors were already evacuated by the time it blew up, or it would have been a whole lot worse."

Andi forced herself to smile. "I really bungled things didn't I?" she asked bitterly.

"Hey. Taylor." Gordon came over and put a hand on her shoulder. "Listen. You did more than anyone could have expected. Without you, nobody at Wayne Tower would have had any warning and many more civilians would have died. SWAT managed to save most of them thanks to you. Nobody blames you."

Andi bit her lip to keep from arguing. Another memory was also there, one of half-flying half-falling off Wayne Tower as it burst into flame behind her like a sick torch… "The Batman saved me didn't he?"

"Yes." Gordon refused to look her in the eyes, the way he always did when he approached a touchy subject. "Look. I don't know if you confronted him yesterday or not, but right now, he's our best shot against the Joker and saving your friend. If you do know who he is… could you at least wait to unmask him?"

Andi shut her eyes. Could have done more. He had saved her. Bungled everything. Nobody blames you. "I need to think," she told Gordon, "You should check on your other men."

"Alright." Andi heard his heavy footsteps go to the door, but he paused there. "Your friend, Dr. Isley, only left an hour ago when I convinced her to go home and sleep. Would you like me to call her?"

_ Pam_. Something triggered in her memory. '_I was, um, expecting Dr. Quin-zel's_ other_ friend. The red one. Uh, _Pam_.'_

"The Joker!" Andi's eyes shot open. "He knows who Pam is. He might—he might be after her. I should—"

"_You_ should stay still," Gordon said sternly. "We already thought about the Joker trying to go after Dr. Quinzel's friends. Dr. Isley has 24 hour police protection, although she insists on continuing her work and staying in her home. Says she's too close to some sort of breakthrough to leave. Now, would you like to see her?"

Yes. Andi would. Pam was probably the one person in the world right now who could snap her out of this horrible guilt. But, somehow, Andi also thought she could face her friend's understanding least of all right now if she wanted to stay strong.

"Just wait until she calls. I need to think." Andi repeated. Gordon made a sound in his throat that might have been affirmative but didn't leave.

"When I said that Dr. Quinzel's friends were under police surveillance, I meant you too Taylor. I've stationed Sergeant Bailey out here. If you need anything, just call; someone will be here around the clock."

She didn't answer and after a minute Gordon's footsteps echoed down the hall.

Andi's eyebrows clenched together as she tried to make her thoughts focus. Wayne had saved her. Just like with Reese, she had threatened to expose him, tried to bring him down, and he had still risked himself to make sure she made it away from the Joker alive. Why? If she'd died it would have been clear enough what had happened. Gordon would never have blamed him for Andi's death, not after the Joker so clearly did her in. Wayne's identity would have been safe. He probably would have even caught the Joker. The odds of it would have improved at least.

So why had he rescued her?

Andi tried to think of an answer, but the only one that she could come up with was one she didn't like, a solution that she instinctively tried to avoid even acknowledging. No. There had to have been another motive of some kind. But, as the painkillers started to pull her under again, the question bubbled up to the front of her mind despite all her efforts.

_ Could I have been wrong about him this whole time?_

_

* * *

_The feeling of someone taking her hand woke her again. Andi vaguely remembered the hourly visits of nurses and doctors, checking her temperature, IV bag, and all the other medical paraphernalia, but this waking felt different. The person wasn't poking and prodding her body, just sitting on the edge of her bed, waiting.

"Pam?" she whispered. Her friend looked odd, almost a different person without her usual heavy make up, her vibrant hair flattened.

"Andi? Oh, Andi, I was so afraid I'd lose you too." Pam's voice was as haggard as her appearance.

Andi struggled and managed to lift herself onto one elbow. "What did the doctors say? How close was it for me?" she asked.

"You were in ICU for awhile there," Pam said, "They actually used one of my antidotes to get the gasoline and other toxins out." Andi expected her voice to swell with pride at that, but it was still deadpan, almost stunned.

It reminded Andi of why she was there. She had managed to distract herself earlier, with Gordon and the Batman, but now that Pam was here, her cool analyses didn't shield her any longer. She couldn't run from the images in her mind of Leena's screams, the Joker's parting threat to her, the blood all over her friend's face…

"What is it? Are you in pain?" Pam asked as her heart rate sped up on the monitor.

"She's gone." Andi choked out, and before she quite realized what had happened or how she had sat up she was sobbing relentlessly on Pam's shoulder. "I tried—I tried to save her," she gasped out, "I tried to fight him. I should have—should have held on tighter. Gotten there faster. Something. I couldn't see it, I was too obsessed with other things so I let her do that, and I knew—I _knew_ she'd get hurt from it. He took Leena and it's my fault, it was all my fault Pam…"

Pam held her tightly, let her cry herself out. The wounds on Andi's back protested against the pressure of her friends arms, but something much deeper and more needy started to heal as Pam murmured to her soothingly, the same way she would a sobbing child or a hurt animal.

Andi didn't know how long it was until the guilt had finally drained away with her tears, her sobs subsided from sheer exhaustion, but they eventually did. And then, when Pam and she finally separated and Andi laid back down, she found that there was nothing else to say.

"Has anyone figured out what the Joker's doing?" she asked, more to get a conversation going than anything else. She knew that if there had been news on that front, Pam would have already told her.

"No. The police are convinced he might come for me."

"They might be right. The Joker knows who we are. Leena must have mentioned us," Andi said wearily, "You really should let them move you out of Gotham."

"I can't. You wouldn't believe what I've found out!" A small spark of Pam's usual light rekindled in her eyes. "You remember that mushroom I found when we were hiking in the woods right?"

"Vaguely."

"I've been running tests on it. There's this one enzyme inside it that can actually break down several of the major contaminants in Gotham's water mains along with certain rarer toxins. The mushroom itself is highly toxic, but from what I can tell, if I can isolate the protein, that wouldn't have any effect on the human body if it was absorbed."

"Wait." Andi cursed her slow thinking with these painkillers, "Are you telling me that you think lacing Gotham's water supply with this mushroom can keep our water from getting poisoned?"

"That's it exactly! It's already kept clean in the nicer parts of the city, but in the Narrows… this would be a cheap, effective way to prevent people who live there dying from poisoned water. If I can just run some more tests and find enough of those mushrooms—they're incredibly endangered, that park's probably one of its last habitats—just think of what we could do. Nobody else will have to die like Ivy did, and that poison that got into the Narrows three years ago would never have gotten off the ground if we'd had that!" Pam's eyes were shining now, glowing almost.

"That's—that's incredible."

"It really is." Pam seemed to recognize how enthusiasm in her voice contrasted with the painful situation, and slowly her expression changed. The hope was still there but it… hardened almost. Turned solemn and resolute. "I'm not going to let anyone else die like my sister did." she said softly, "Not now that I have a way to stop it."

The silence stretched on until Andi made herself speak. "Then you really should get back to it."

"What? No—no, that wasn't what I meant Andi. I'm not going to leave you like this, while you're still in the—"

"Pam." Andi was proud of how strong her voice was. She didn't want Pam to go, but there was really no reason for her to stay either. Better to let at least one of them escape from the painful memories by keeping busy and doing some good. "Don't be ridiculous. You can't do anything for me here, and you can in your labs. Go on and figure things out."

Pam hesitated and Andi could see how badly her loyalty was warring with the desire to finish her work.

"Go on," she said firmly, "Just call me once in awhile alright? And bring me some decent food; I've seen what the cafeteria workers do to it, and trust me I think it's half the reason people always want to leave the hospital."

"Andi, are you _sure_ you want me to leave?"

"Absolutely," Andi said, "Just be sure to watch yourself out there. No matter what you think, I think the Joker might come after you. Don't take any stupid risks, alright?"

Pam's face darkened.

"If the Joker thinks he can come after me, it's him who's taking risks," she promised. "Believe me, Andi, after what he did to you and Leena, it would be his grave being dug if he came anywhere in range."

That didn't exactly comfort Andi, but she took it as the best promise Pam could give and didn't protest when her friend stood and left. She knew that the painkillers ought to have her exhausted physically and mentally, but as her thoughts turned to the Joker again she felt wide awake. He had Leena. He was _hiding_ of all things. Andi had considered several scenarios, but never this. One of the few things she could positively identify about the Joker was the way he acted: a showman, almost a 'leader' of Gotham into darkness. Why had he gone almost two days without taking action? And what would his next move be?

* * *

**Author's Note: **Hey y'all, it's me. Sorry posts have been slowing down lately but, as the school year becomes more intense, I really can't say that it will change any time in the near future. Still, I will at least try to keep them coming consistently, even if it is consistently late.

On the note of lateness, I'm running a bit behind with review responses; I think I caught up to most last night, but there are one or two people I haven't gotten to, and I figured you'd prefer the post. They're coming though, I promise!

As always, there are lots of amazing people I'd like to think for reading, favoriting, etc. Thanks so much this go-round to **Jousting Elf with a Saber, CrossmoonChic7459, **and **Kent Rigel** for putting Unmasked on Story Alert, and to **Kno555, chloe94, **and **x-gemarrr** for favoriting! And all you amazing reviewers, I'm so glad you're enjoying so far; nothing perks you up from a hard day of work and studying like finding a review alert in your inbox.


	11. Truce

**Chapter 11: Truce**

"Taylor, I really don't think that this is a smart move."

"Bailey." Andi forced her voice to stay calm. "I appreciate everything you've done to protect me. Really, I do. But I need an hour of privacy to sort out some personal affairs. Give me that, and then I will come to work and sit happily under your surveillance all day." She finished signing the last of the insurance forms at the hospital's front desk and turned away towards the parking lot, hoping to indicate that the conversation was finished. Thank heaven for Pam picking up some clothes for her yesterday. Trying maintain her dignified, dismissive attitude in a hospital gown would have been laughable.

Unfortunately, Bailey followed her. He had been a cop for over fifteen years, and earned his reputation for doggedness several times over.

"I heard the doctors. You shouldn't even be out of the hospital yet, Taylor. And Gordon gave me strict orders that under no circumstances…"

Andi really hadn't wanted to pull this card, but looking at Bailey's round, determined face she realized that she would have no choice if she wanted to get past him. "Well then, let me call the Commissioner. Whatever he decides, you and I will go by it. Fair enough?"

Bailey thought about it for a second and then nodded.

"Good. Can I borrow your phone? Mine was blown up on the top of Wayne Tower."

Bailey handed Andi his cell, but glared hard at her when she tried to move out of earshot. At the rate he was going she was surprised that he had even let her walk outside without putting on a bulletproof vest.

Gordon's desk sent her to voicemail. Andi hung up and tried his cellphone instead, where he picked up on the first ring, voice clipped. "Bailey? What's wrong? Is there trouble with Taylor or any of the others?"

"No, no Commissioner I'm fine," Andi said lightly, "Actually the hospital just released me. I'm coming back to MCU to get some work done but I was wondering if I could have an hour to myself first."

"Of course you can Taylor. I wasn't even expecting you to come back to work for another few days, so please take as much time as you need. Just make sure that Bailey knows in advance where you're heading so he can follow you in his car."

"That's sort of the thing though." Andi was forcibly reminded of all the times when, as a teenager, she had tried to wheedle Abuelita into letting her go to dances or other events unchaperoned. The same way you slowly convinced the person to allow one harmless thing, leading to another, leading eventually to something they never would have agreed to at first. "These things I have to settle involve some matters with a… difficult… friend. I'd rather not let Bailey get involved if I can help it."

"This friend?" Her boss paused, trying to word it right, "He'd be the nocturnal sort?"

"That's him. I really would appreciate it if you could give me enough time to meet up with him. I'm sure I'll be quite safe there."

"Taylor I don't want you threatening him right now. I know you may not trust him, but—"

"I promise that's not it at all sir. I understand how the situation's changed."

Gordon considered it, then sighed heavily.

"If it's not that then fine. Sixty minutes. Pass the phone to Bailey so I can tell him. He won't believe you if you tell him yourself." Well, it was a good thing Gordon had agreed then. Faking Gordon's permission had been her back up plan. Bailey scowled at the phone as Gordon started talking to him and finally hung up, looking highly displeased. It was an effort not to smirk, but Andi managed. Sort of.

"Are you sure that you feel alright?" he asked.

"Right as rain." Andi lied brightly. The gasoline and other poisons were long gone from her system but she was still weak and the cuts in her legs and back were aching. She could stand it though. Another day sitting in the hospital would have driven her mad. "The Joker hasn't shown his face yet. I'm sure I'll be alright for an hour."

"Fine," Bailey snapped. "Your clock is starting now. And—here. Keep my phone. In case you get in trouble or something and need Gordon to bail you out."

Andi nodded and tried not to limp as she made her way to the car. She got in before Bailey made it halfway to his patrol car, but waited until he left the lot to pull out. She wouldn't put it past him to follow her if he got half a chance.

When she pulled up to Wayne Manor, the gates slid open without her even having to look at the annoying security guard. Either the guy didn't want to have to confront her again or he had been given orders to just put her though. Andi was glad. She had used nearly half an hour of her time to get here, and although it would be only ten minutes to get from the manor to MCU, she still didn't have much time to delay.

Wayne was standing to the side of the drive this time and he opened her door the moment she parked, giving Andi no chance to stall and gather her courage. Then again, maybe it would be better to just get this over with.

"Miss Taylor." He helped her out of the car and spoke as politely as if he was taking her on a date. "Would you like to come inside?" Andi looked warily at the large staircase leading to the manor, but made herself nod. The slashes in her legs and back weren't so bad that she couldn't climb a set of stairs.

She started to re-think that diagnosis when her head began to whirl about halfway up. Andi went still and closed her eyes, waited for the dizziness to pass. She needed to show strength here. Grimly she forced herself to start moving again, ignoring Wayne's curious look. _He doesn't know how badly the Joker cut me,_ she realized. Well that was to the good. Things were too urgent for her to be weak now. She needed her body to last, and last it would, whether it liked it or not.

He escorted her into the same parlor she had confronted him in before, once again calling for his butler to bring them something to drink. Andi sank gratefully into her seat and hoped that none of her stitches had pulled open. It would probably take half her salary to replace a bloodied armchair here. Wayne sat opposite her. His gaze was just as hard as last time, and it took even more effort for Andi to meet it now, with her body as weak as it was.

"So what is this about?" he finally asked.

"I…" _Get the hard part over with,_ she told herself, _Soften him up first. _"I wanted to thank you." Andi shook her head and started babbling as she tried to explain herself. "I mean for what you did on Wayne Tower, fighting for Leena and saving my life. You didn't have to do that at all, especially after what—"

"It's alright. You don't have to thank me." Wayne cut in.

Andi bit her lip. "Why do you do it?"

"Save your life?"

"Not just that. I mean all of it. The crime fighting, taking the blame for others, saving people who you know will hate you. Why?"

"Perhaps," Wayne said slowly, "I do it for the same reason you took a job with Gotham PD when LA offered you twice the pay to work with them."

"Gordon offered to have the city pay for you getting your Master's Degree?"

Wayne snorted. "You got offered a free ride to Stanford. Don't try to pretend you stuck around here because of money."

Andi's eyebrows rose, but she tried to keep her voice neutral. "You did your homework."

"You were a threat to me," he shrugged, "I hoped that you would have a skeleton in your closet I could use to tip the scales in my favor."

"That—that was the other reason I came." Andi admitted, "I still don't know that I agree with you on your methods, or that I believe you are as pure and wonderful as you claim, but you tried to save Leena's life. And you did save mine. Turning you in—"

They were interrupted by the butler carrying in trays of food. Andi glanced at a pair of aspirins sitting by her water and looked up to see the butler's eyes twinkling. _How did he know?_ She swallowed them gratefully.

"Have a seat Alfred," Wayne invited, "I think Miss Taylor is just on the point of admitting that I was right all along."

"Not quite," Andi said as Pennyworth stiffly pulled up a chair, his formality a stark contrast to Wayne's at-home attitude "Like I told you, I still have doubts. But with what's been happening… well, to put it bluntly, you're too important to stopping the Joker for me to bring you down right now. I was hoping to call a truce."

"A truce?"

"I want to bargain. Both of us can help each other and we both have a common enemy. I was hoping we could sort of… pool our resources. At least for the time being."

"How so?" Andi could tell that she had caught Wayne's interest. She tried to make her voice cool and professional.

"We both know that we're on borrowed time here. The Joker won't hide forever. He'll strike, and he'll strike hard when he does. You're probably the only one who has a chance in a confrontation with him, but that will only work if you can track him down. I can help with that. If you let me in on what you've got, I can analyze what you've found and be able to contribute to finding him."

Wayne nodded slowly, consideringly. Andi took a deep breath and continued.

"I want two things in return though."

"Oh?"

"The first is something that just makes sense for tracking the Joker. I want to be kept in the loop on everything that's going on with him. No matter how insignificant. That includes your plans as well."

"And will you tell me all of the information you get and your plans?" Wayne asked carefully. Andi felt a surge of hope. He was trading. That meant he would at least consider the deal.

"Of course," she agreed.

"Sounds reasonable so far," Wayne said, "The second condition?"

"The Joker has Leena. When you confront him, there's a good chance you'll find her too." Despite all her efforts, Andi's voice shook slightly at the thought. She'd been with Gotham's police long enough to know what happened in the majority of hostage situations. _I will save you Leena._ "And there's a possibility that he's also after my other friend, Dr. Pamela Isley. I want—I want your word that you'll protect them. No matter what it takes, no matter what else it may cost you. You save them first."

"Sometimes people die despite everything I can do." Wayne pointed out quietly. Andi nodded.

"I know that. But I want you to do everything within your power to protect them. Even if it means you or me or others have to be hurt for it. They're your top priority."

Wayne considered it. "I want something in return too then."

Andi had expected something like this. "I'm listening."

"This truce. I don't want it to only last until this is over. If I save your friends and stop the Joker I want your word that you will never reveal who I am. Ever."

Andi closed her eyes. She had thought this might come. And she had made her decision about it before leaving the hospital. She just wished it didn't still seem like she was making a deal with the devil. The worst part of it was knowing that if it saved her friends she probably _would_ have dealt with Satan himself. At least Wayne was just a person trying to do the right thing, no matter that she disagreed with his methods.

"Done," she whispered.

"Good. Now we really should work out some sort of cover for us. Some way you could communicate with me without it seeming suspicious." Wayne's eyes lit up maliciously. "I think disguising you as one of my model girlfriends—"

"Wouldn't work," Andi snapped, "I'm not trashy enough and you don't keep them for more than a week anyways. Who knows how long this would take?"

Wayne shut his mouth and looked rather disappointed, but his butler laughed.

"I must say, Miss," he chortled, "It's been awhile since I've seen anyone turn Master Wayne down like that. The last time must have been when he was thirteen and he tried to kiss Miss Macy Cummings on Valentine's Day. Her brothers ended up tying him to the—"

"Yes, _thank you_ Alfred." Despite the frown on Wayne's face, though, the mood lightened perceptibly when he turned back to Andi. "So what did you have in mind?"

"I'm a fully qualified scientist." Andi pointed out. "I majored in chemistry at GSU, then got my masters in both organic chemistry and biology there. Wayne Corporation has research positions that I'm more than qualified for. I would pretend to want some time away from the police force because of what happened last week and your business can hire me, supposedly on a temporary contract. Of course, I'd really be working on analyzing evidence that you've gathered from the police and on your own. The two of us could communicate whatever we know or need through Lucius Fox, the CEO."

"If you're claiming to be traumatized, don't you think working at Wayne Tower would be the last place you should go?"

"Of course. That's why I'd be working at one of Wayne Enterprises' other research facilities in the city. It's not like the tower's in business right now anyways"

Pennyworth laughed again and Wayne glared at him. "What _now_ Alfred?"

"Pardon me, sir, but I think this young lady has outmaneuvered you as well as a five star general."

This time Wayne's lips twitched slightly too. "I think perhaps she has," he agreed, "Well, Miss Taylor, it seems we have ourselves a bargain."

He held out his hand. Andi reached to take it and then Bailey's cellphone rang.

"Gordon?" she wondered aloud, looking at the caller ID. She was probably going to be late back the precinct unless she drove like mad, but her hour hadn't quite finished yet. And he wouldn't call when she was with the Batman unless it was important. Andi grimaced apologetically at Wayne and snapped the phone open.

"Andrea Taylor."

"Taylor? You're still alive? Thank heaven for that much at least." Gordon sounded more panicked than she had ever heard him, even when Leena had been kidnapped. The loud sirens in the background made Andi think that he was in a police car.

"Commissioner? Why wouldn't I be alive? What's happened?"

"The Joker struck again and he hit—Drive faster can't you? We don't have time to wait for the lights, I want us back there _now!_"

"Gordon? Gordon what happened? Where did the Joker attack?"

"You're safe right Taylor? Does anybody know where you are?"

"No, no I'm fine, I'm with the Batman." She saw Wayne jerk at that, but Gordon already worked with and trusted Batman and she wasn't too inclined to indulge his obsession for secrecy right now.

"Good. Stay there. The Joker just blew up half of the Major Crimes Unit again, starting with the forensics lab."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Dun-dun-DUNH!

Ahem. Anyways.

Sorry these posts are coming late and everything. I think two weeks per post is the pattern I'm settling into, so we'll have to see if I can keep up with that. This week was a particularly hard one, so if I'm through it then maybe I can pull through the ones 'til Christmas too.

Remember that monster I mentioned a few posts back? Well the Irish have been on a pretty pathetic losing street lately (TULSA? We lost to TULSA?...), but thanks to you guys, the innocent villagers have been saved from destruction by feeding it on some good healthy reviews! Thank y'all so much; your feedback, favoriting, story alerting, etc. really do mean the world to me.


	12. Mind Games

**Chapter 12:** Mind Games

How long had she been here? She didn't know any more. Days had blurred and memories had trouble sticking. It certainly seemed like an eternity. Somehow she wasn't dead. She wished she was in her more lucid moments. But even then, she just couldn't bring herself to make Jay kill her.

Jay. She couldn't think of him without a thrill of fear running through her, an electrified version of the unremitting pain. Lately those two things—the fear and the pain—seemed to be all she could feel any more. At first she had clung to thoughts of her family, and of Andi and Pam, but the memories soon became worn and brittle. Meaningless. All there was anymore was Jay, Jay and the twin fear and pain he inspired.

She had given up resisting him long ago. He called her Harley now, and she responded to the name like a dog to its master. The one time she had tried to insist otherwise he had pulled out his knife and—

She choked back a sob. She. No. Not just 'she.' Leena. Her name was still Leena no matter what he did to her. No matter what she told him. No matter what he did to her.

He didn't seem to particularly _want _to do anything to her though. Oh, he still kicked and cuffed her sometimes—or, even more frighteningly, called her Harley and ran his filthy fingers through her hair and across her battered face, as if Leena was a child or small animal—but whatever he had wanted to 'teach' her seemed to have been forgotten. For the most part, Leena was ignored unless she called attention to herself. She always vowed that she wouldn't, that _this_ time she would be tough enough to starve or die of dehydration first, but after the tortuous experience of—four? five?—days ago, she had never lasted more than half a day before she begged him for help. Her body always clamored for resources to heal itself, never realizing that the person who gave her the food and water was also causing the problems. Sometimes she got what she asked for. More often, uproarious laughter or a blow to the face was her only answer. Once or twice it had been a beating so hard that she had blacked out.

Where was he now? For all that he ignored her, Jay usually walked in and out during the day, muttering to himself, but Leena hadn't seen him at all. From the stifling heat, she thought it must be midafternoon. At least there weren't flies in here.

A new fear suddenly joined the ones lurking in the pit of her stomach. What if Jay simply left her here? What if he never came back, if she went mad—what if she was already mad? Leena looked up at the ceiling, lips moving in silent prayer. No. No, she _couldn't _be mad yet. She hadn't been to a synagogue since high school, but surely God wouldn't abandon her to that.

Panic and giddy relief coursed through her when the door opened at last. The bruises in her ribs kept Leena from curling up like she used to, but she pressed herself flat against her corner and hoped it would be enough for Jay to ignore her.

He didn't walk in right away though. Leena could hear him muttering to himself, and saw that he was bent over, dragging something, something heavy and long, very low to the ground—

_A body_. Had she really thought that Jay would spend all his time just hanging around hurting her? Of course he was up to something. Something that involved killing, hurting others… she thought she would have been sick if her stomach wasn't so empty.

Jay at last succeeded in pulling the corpse inside and slammed the heavy door into place. "C'mere Harl! I've gotta, um, _present _for you."

Leena didn't want to move, not closer to Jay and certainly not closer to the dead man, but she had learned from experience to obey Jay's commands to the letter. Sometimes that was enough to keep him from hurting her. Sometimes. She made herself stand up, hunched over slightly to ease the pain in her ribs, and stumbled towards him.

She was worried that she wasn't fast enough, but Jay waited for her, rocking from his heels to the balls of his feet. He was smiling—really smiling, not just with his scars—but his eyes held a hungry, predatory gleam. As Leena got closer she smelled smoke, clinging to him and the body like a cloud.

"What did you blow up?"

The words slipped out before she could stop them but Jay didn't seem displeased. "Oh…" he rolled his eyes to one side, "The police station." His eyes snapped back to her and, at her horrified face, he leaned in confidingly. "Ya know, you shoulda seen all those coppers run. It was hi-lar-i-ous. Mighta even made _you_ laugh. And between you and me Harley, you're a bit of a killjoy."

Leena knew from their therapy sessions another lifetime ago that he was a pathological liar. But a quick glance down at the body showed a slightly overweight, middle aged man dressed in a navy blue uniform. The police station. For the first time she could remember here, the fear she felt was for someone else. "Andi?"

"No. No. This isn't An-di. This is… uh…" Jay bent close to the body and read off the nametag, "'Sergeant Bailey.'" He patted the unconscious man's cheek with a gloved hand, then stood up straight again. "He's for you."

He seemed to be in a talkative mood. Leena decided to risk another question. "Why did you give me a corpse?"

Jay stared at her for several seconds, then burst out in huge whoops of laughter. Leena fought the instinct to run. Laughter had always come before the worst abuse. But flight would only make it worse for her.

"You—you really are—too much Harley." Jay burst out, holding his sides, "You just—you always think the worst of me don't you?"

Leena was too afraid to answer, but Jay caught her confusion. "He's not a _stiff,_" he drawled, "He's a-a-_live_! He's a... _friend_ for you to play with. And help you with your, uh... group therapy."

Therapy. So he had finally remembered his promised 'psychiatry.' Leena found herself trembling. Whatever hell the past few days had contained, they had at least settled into something routine. She knew what to expect. If Jay was bringing up lessons, that was about to change. And she doubted it would be for the better.

"Well. Not that this isn't _fun_," Jay shook his head, "But I need to work on some other_ stuff_. You kiddies behave yourselves."

He headed for that other room of his, only to poke his head back through the door almost immediately. "Oh and, uh, don't let him escape Harl. I… uh… wouldn't wanna hurtcha." He winked at her and disappeared again.

Leena waited for thirty seconds to make sure that he was really gone this time, then bent over the officer, shaking his shoulder with both hands. "Mister? Mister? C'mon, please wake up, please." All her medical experience went out the window with her desperation for there to be someone else, _anyone_ else who was still sane, who wasn't a part of the bubble that had held only her and Jay. "Please, please, _please_ get up."

He groaned and one of his hands twitched. Leena froze, watching him avidly. Perhaps it was selfish for her to be glad that he was here, that he was still alive. She didn't know and at that moment she didn't care. There was someone else. She wasn't alone.

Slowly his eyelids fluttered open, one hand reaching up to the back of his head. "Ow." His eyes rolled in their sockets, as if he didn't have complete control of them, then found Leena. He squinted.

"Who—"

"I'm Leena. Or Dr. Quinzel, but you can call me Leena," she said, "Most people just call me Leena, even though my full name's Harleen. And it's not—not—Harley. _Never_ Harley. You understand that right? I'm still Leena, I'm still—"

Oh gosh, she sounded crazy. Leena snapped her mouth shut, but the officer didn't seem to notice anything strange. His eyes closed again, but he spoke slowly. "Doctor—Quinzel—" He drew a ragged breath. "The Joker. He has us doesn't he?"

Leena flinched at the reminder. Whatever held Jay back from actually killing her, she doubted this man would have the same immunity. She had thought the abuse had ground out everything in her except survival instinct, but the thought of him being hurt proved that it wasn't true. As little as she wanted to be attacked by Jay, she wanted to protect this man even more. Somebody deserved to come out of this ordeal unscathed.

"You should get out," she muttered, "While you still can. I think we're at the harbor judging by the smell. It's bound to be crowded. There'll be someone who will help you."

He didn't answer, just opened his eyes again and watched her.

"Come on." Leena pushed his shoulder a little bit to get him moving, "The door's that way. You can—"

"What about you?"

Leena found a crooked smile on her face. She pulled the hem of her shirt up a little bit, just enough to show him some of the bruises on her stomach. They weren't even the worst ones—those were the kicks on her ribs and the knife wound Jay had given her—but her companion still flinched.

"I doubt I'd get far," she whispered, "That's probably why he keeps me so beaten in the first place. It's hard to escape when you can barely walk. You need to get out before he does the same to you."

Something firmed in his face.

"No. No, I'm not leaving you here."

"Don't be… don't be foolish." Leena swallowed. The image of someone else being hurt too… no, she couldn't allow that. She really _would _go crazy. But she shouldn't tell the officer that. "Once you're out you can bring help."

"The minute I'm free, he'll know and probably kill you. I'm not leaving you to that." He sat up slowly and winced again. "Besides, my head hurts."

"Let me see." Leena moved in behind him, carefully probing with her fingers. "Here? It hurts here?"

"Yep."

"Can you still see straight? No blurriness? Are you dizzy?"

"A bit dizzy." He touched his scalp gingerly but didn't flinch. "It's mostly from getting dragged around and sitting up suddenly I think."

Leena felt her lips pull up the tiniest bit. "I don't suppose recommending you take it easy for the next couple of days would be effective."

"Doubt it. But I'll keep it in mind anyways."

Leena stood up, then reached down a hand. "Come on. We should move."

"Why?" He ignored her hand and stood up on his own. Despite the blow to his head, he still seemed to be steadier on his feet than she was.

"Jay crosses through this path every hour or so. We don't want to be in his way, drawing attention to ourselves and such, if we can help it."

He had put up with the things Leena had said before—and she was no fool, she knew that she had sounded slightly unhinged at times—but something she had just said made him stare at her like she was insane. Leena's voice went defensive. "What?"

"You call him _Jay?"_ His voice was about the same tone as Leena's when she'd learned Pam wanted to keep a pet tarantula in their dorm back in college.

"I was his psychiatrist," Leena sighed, "I didn't want to keep calling him 'the Joker' like a freak."

"But that's what he is!"

"Not what he could be though. I believed—still do believe—that there is something good, something worth saving in every person. Jay… I named him Jay because I wanted to see him as that person. He's not a force of nature or some icon of evil. He can't be."

The policeman snorted at the idea, but when Leena beckoned again he followed her. She didn't take him all the way back to her corner, just a wall far enough away that they wouldn't be in Jay's path and could see bits of the sky through the high windows. That was important. Leena always tried to stay in view of the sky, even when that meant taking extra summer heat. She sat down, leaning her head against the wall and turned to her companion. "So. Jay said your name was Bailey."

"That's right. And you're Leena? Taylor told me a lot about you."

"Taylor?" Leena's voice rose to something close to a shriek and she grabbed his shoulders, "You mean Andrea Taylor? Andi? You know her? Is she alright? Did Jay hurt her? Did he really attack the police station? Was she there? What—"

"Hold on. Calm down." Bailey carefully pried her off of him. "Yes, I mean Andi. She tried to save you when the Joker first kidnapped you, but her injuries from that weren't life-threatening. She stayed in the hospital for several days after some nasty stuff got into her system, but she's better now and was released today."

"What about the police station? Jay said he blew up the police station! Was she there?"

"No." Bailey frowned. "No she wasn't. Said she had some 'personal business' she needed to put out of the way first. I was supposed to guard her, but the Commissioner called me off, I went back to the precinct to wait for her…"

"And then Jay attacked," Leena whispered, "I'll bet he thought Andi had already come back when you did."

"Luck," Bailey muttered, "Amazing luck."

"For her at least," Leena pointed out, "Not so much for you."

He paused. "At least the Joker didn't get what he wanted, though. That's something. And if Andi had been there, he would probably have grabbed her and let me die when he blew up the station."

Leena didn't want to say that his luck was still down if he had been dragged here instead of dying, so she just changed the subject. "How long since I was kidnapped?"

"You disappeared five days ago."

"Five?" Had it only been that short of a time? Leena had thought it was a week at least. How could she have slipped so far in only five days? "What else has Jay been doing?"

"As far as we can tell… nothing. He left us alone until today when he blew up the station." Bailey leaned his head back against the wall and let his eyes slip closed.

"Get some sleep," Leena encouraged, "I'll keep an eye on things." Not that there would be much she could do to protect him from Jay. But if he caught both of them unaware…

Bailey dozed off and Leena, as had been her habit more and more often, stared out the window. Was she imagining that tiny plume of black smoke in the distance? She didn't even know what direction she was facing, but the harbor was far away from the police station. There was probably no way she'd be able to see it.

* * *

Jay came back into the room so silently Leena wasn't even aware of him until he was halfway towards them. She made herself stand and even approached him a little to put herself between him and the still-sleeping Bailey. He noticed. He didn't say or do anything, but Leena could see the way his eyes followed her movement and heard the tiny chuckle. "So… having fun Harl?"

Leena didn't respond. The appearance of someone else had somehow restored her will. She couldn't bend to Jay again, not because she needed to defend herself, but because she needed to protect Bailey. If she could draw Jay's focus to her by acting defiant, he might leave her companion alone. It was the best she could do. For the first time since her kidnapping, she looked in his eyes without cringing. The fear wasn't any less, but her control over it had grown. Jay just smiled at that.

"I've got, uh, something _else _for ya too Harley." Jay's words separated slightly, as if smothering laughter in the pauses. The way he spoke when he became excited. He pulled a white paper bag from behind his back and held it out to her tauntingly, but Leena refused to move towards it. That would put her within arm's reach of him.

"Aw c'mon, I'm not gonna hurtcha," Jay's voice went instantly from crooning to a growl, "C'mere."

Leena didn't move.

"Come _HERE_." He leapt forward and yanked her to him by the arm before Leena could respond. She tumbled forward, slamming into his chest, and when she tried to pull back he locked an arm behind her, a sickening version of a hug. She knew he would hurt her if she showed terror, but she couldn't stop the nervous tremors.

"_This _was for _you_, but if you don't _want_ it…" Jay snarled as he yanked one of her ears. Leena tried to twist free, to get loose despite the fact that she knew it would enrage him. He swept her feet out from under her, kicked her hard in the stomach, the face. Leena tried to curl into a fetal position, but the blows were too fast, one after another, not letting her breathe, not letting her think, red exploding in her eyes, thoughts fragmenting, and laughter, insane laughter all around her. Couldn't cry out, couldn't wake Bailey, would do something stupid, couldn't even breathe, laughter, laughter, laughter…

He planted a foot on her neck, and suddenly everything else went still. Leena stared uncomprehendingly at him, tried not to gag on the blood in her mouth. Jay dropped the paper bag straight on her face and the landing sent white-hot shockwaves from her nose through her cheekbones. Was her nose broken? She couldn't push it away, but it hurt _so much_.

And then Jay had backed off and Leena dared to push herself up. Her face was sticky with blood and tears. The bag fell away, spilling its contents.

French fries. Hamburgers. Even what looked like a McDonald's milkshake, although most of its contents had been spilled.

"Uh-huh."

Jay hadn't gone far; he was sitting cross legged on the floor only a few feet from Leena and the food. "See? I _try_ to be nice to ya Harley, and look at how you treat me." His fingers drummed on the floor, his tongue darting out to lick his lips every couple of seconds. "You just don't _know_ all I do for you."

Leena just stared at him, trying to keep her eyes focused. She couldn't move. Her face throbbed, the pulse itself almost bruising.

"C'mon, aren't'ya even gonna say _thank you_?" He raised his eyebrows at her.

_Have to say it. Give him what he wants and he quits sooner._ Hurt to breathe… she spat blood to one side. "Dank… dank you."

"Wassamatter Harley? Something wrong with your face?" Jay cocked his head and grinned.

"By… by dose." Leena gasped, not sure why she was telling him. He knew exactly what he'd done. He'd enjoyed it. "You broke by dose."

"Aw, now, all you had to do was _ask_." Jay lashed out again, grabbed her by the shoulders and dragged her to him. Leena felt a hamburger squish under her, but Jay didn't pay any attention. He locked her head between his knees, and suddenly Leena was trapped, staring straight up into his face. She tried to shove back, but Jay slapped her hands away. "Hush-hush-hush-hush-hush. Hold—_still_." Suddenly his fingers were gripping her nose and pain lanced through her face, into her head. Leena's back arched up, her shrieks barely stifled by biting her lip, but Jay held her firm, eyes still locked with hers. Leena felt tears and sobs tearing through her—

"And _there_." Jay pulled back with a self satisfied smile and wiped his bloody gloves all over his pants. "Good as new! Now—" He hopped up and Leena barely kept her head from smacking into the concrete, "Eat up! And, uh, don't let Bailey have any. Between you and me, I think he's had one-too-many doughnuts. If he ate anything here I might have to, hnnnn, trim him a bit." Jay nodded wisely and loped off again.

Leena sat up and, as carefully and lightly as she knew how, traced her finger along her nose. It _felt_ straight, but she wouldn't put it past Jay to somehow turn it bulbous and red like a circus clown's if he was given half a chance. She gave the food a look of pure longing. There was more there than Jay had given her all yesterday and the day before. But he had said none for Bailey…

* * *

It was nearly evening when Bailey woke, and with true survival instinct, the first thing his eyes found was the food. "What is _that_ doing here?"

Leena shrugged, trying to keep from looking at the food. Her resolve was wearing down with the burning pain in her body and cold hunger in her stomach. So tired. She knew she shouldn't be able to smell with her nose just broken and dried blood in her nostrils, but she couldn't get the glorious scent of grease and fried things out of her head. "Jay said you couldn't get any. So I'm not eating it either."

"What? No, no Leena that's stupid!"

"Maybe. But I don't want to let him hurt you."

"Right. Because it looks like you weren't hurt at all." Bailey edged closer. Leena had to resist the impulse to shy back. He wasn't like Jay. He wouldn't hurt her. The hand that brushed one of the bruises on her cheek, the dried blood that had streamed from her nose, was very gentle. "That bastard. Did he do this to you while I was asleep?"

Leena tried to bite her lip, but the movement just reawakened the bruises there. "Is my nose alright?" she asked anxiously, "Straight and everything?"

"It looks like a bony, bloody bruise," Bailey said, "But yes, it's straight."

Leena sighed.

"Come on. You should eat." Andi had often talked about how stubborn some of the officers she encountered were. Obviously Leena had ended up with one of them. Bailey stood up and pushed the food in front of her. It was very hard to ignore the greasy cheeseburger with its sun-warmed scent wafting right under her bloody nose. "If you took a beating for me, you deserve the food."

She didn't know where she found the willpower, but somehow Leena kept her gaze locked straight ahead. Bailey sighed and squatted down directly in front of her.

"Leena. I appreciate what you're trying to do for me. But either way, I'm going to go hungry. And if you and I are going to have a chance at escaping, you'll need to keep up your strength. So please," he picked up one of the burgers and held it out to her "Eat. It's ok."

Hesitation and will disappeared. Leena snatched the food, unwrapped it eagerly, and crammed the whole thing into her mouth in two bites. She swallowed fast, seized on the next thing—a handful of French fries—and shoved them wholesale into her mouth too, ignoring the ketchup.

"That's it. That's a girl." Bailey encouraged. Leena finished off the French fries, and he passed her the remains of the sludgy shake. "Drink up now. You need to stay hydrated."

Midway through downing another burger, Leena heard Jay's door open. He walked past, taking no notice, but Leena stuffed the entire thing in her mouth anyways. If he attacked her, she would at least make sure she finished as much as she could of the food first.

He seemed to sense her gaze, but when he turned back to her he wasn't angry at her defiance. Instead his eyes crinkled, his mouth stretched up in a wicked smile. He nodded to Leena and made a motion with one hand, as if to say _Don't let me interrupt you_.

_This is what he wants,_ Leena realized suddenly, _Me to eat all of this, ignoring what Bailey needs. He wants me to be stuck in a place where whatever I choose—sacrificing or helping myself—I'm still going to end up hurting a good person. And this isn't going to be the last time._

The door slammed behind Jay and the food turned to leather in Leena's mouth.

* * *

**Author's Note: **Yay for extra-long chapters!

Alright, I just have to say it: y'all are incredible. Amazing. Wonderful beyond belief. Seriously, the reviews y'all have been giving lately have been nothing short of phenomenal. Heck, between you and a brilliant Irish victory last Saturday (blocking that kick, trouncing a ranked team, rushing the field... Absolutely epic.), my captive monster is far too fat now to try anything more menacing than rolling towards the stairs of my basement. This time around I'm also going to give a special shout out to **ChristianBale Girl 2010** for her birthday! Hopefully whatever posting problem this site is giving me will be fixed soon enough for me to post it on time for you.

Everyone have a happy Thanksgiving and stay safe if you're traveling!


	13. Guest

**Chapter 13:** Guest

Andi was proud of herself. She was horrified, yes, and stunned. But as Gordon spoke, she didn't freeze. Perhaps the recent dramas had begun to immunize her. "The police station?" she repeated, voice high and breathy. Not as immune as she thought, then. She cleared her throat and made herself speak normally. "Do you think—do you think he targeted me?"

"You leave the hospital and less than an hour later the Joker blows up your lab? Hell yes." It was the first time Andi had ever heard Gordon swear, but she understood. How many in the force had been killed? The death toll had to be high—the Joker was involved after all. And the forensic lab. Her co-workers, friends... and everyone she'd been counting on to pass her information about the investigation. She hated to think about it that way, but it was the truth. "I'm going to round up a couple of patrol officers and find an unmarked squad car once this crisis wears down. Stay where you are until I call you and then they'll escort you—"

"I won't leave Gotham sir."

"Don't be ridiculous Taylor. This is _the Joker_ coming after you."

"I understand that sir. But I also understand that if the Joker blew up the forensics lab—" Wayne's eyes widened at that but Andi ignored him, "—I'm probably the one of the only competent trace analysts left in Gotham; county's people never were as good as our team at MCU. I can help identify the bodies, figure out what explosives he used, and maybe even deduce where he is. You need me, sir, if we're going to have any chance against him. I want to come in and help."

"You can't come in _now_. What good would you do anyways? The blaze is still going on and we have no idea where the Joker's gone. He might have done this just to get you to come out looking for him or some—"

"Later then. I'll come in tonight when it's safe, go over the wreckage."

Gordon hesitated. "You said you were with… protection?"

"That's right."

"Put me on speakerphone."

Andi obediently pressed the little button and held the phone between herself and Wayne. He cleared his throat, and when he spoke it was in the guttural voice of the Batman. "Gordon?"

"You've heard what's happened?" Gordon snapped.

"The gist."

"Good. You realize he's targeted Taylor? I want her to stay safe but she's being stubborn and, dammit, we _could_ use her skills. If she stays in Gotham can you protect her? She'll need someone to escort her to the crime scene tonight and a place to hide as long as she's in danger."

"Sir," Andi protested, "I don't think this is really nec—"

"Taylor, either you stay with him or I tie you up in a sack and send you out of here no matter what you want."

Andi snapped her mouth closed and glared at the phone as Wayne plucked it from her hands and covered the speaker. He arched an eyebrow at her and after a minute Andi sighed, stubbornness fading.

"We agreed to do whatever it takes to get them back," she muttered reluctantly. Wayne grimaced but nodded, turning back to the phone and taking his hand from the mouthpiece.

"I can do it."

"Good. How long—"

Wayne shut the phone off and handed it back to Andi.

"Well, Alfred, it looks like we're going to have a house guest."

"Quite so, sir. At least we can hope that this one won't get drunk."

Andi's mouth tightened as if she'd just swallowed a lemon. "There's no chance of you just footing my bill at a nice hotel is there?" she asked hopefully, "I've always wanted to visit the Luxe. And I promise I'll order room service instead of going out."

Both Wayne and Pennyworth looked at her as if she was mad. "The Luxe," Wayne said slowly, "Is owned by men with mob connections. As are half the hotels and apartments in this city. Even if you avoid one of those, the Joker can easily start making demands like he did last time, insisting that you get killed. With all the fear that's going around, do you really think your neighbors will protect you? Whether we like it or not—" from the look on Wayne's face, Andi strongly suspected he was in the latter category, "—the Manor is a secure area that has no connection to you as far as anyone knows. If you stay hidden here, you'll be safe from the Joker and still able to analyze any evidence I come up with. I have some lab equipment and can get you more if you need it."

Andi opened her mouth, preparing to argue with no idea what she could really say. Wayne's logic made sense, much as it hurt to admit it. But a thought occurred to her as she drew in her breath.

_Pam._ If the Joker had come after her, his next logical target would be… oh, God why hadn't she realized? She needed to warn her best friend, needed to warn her _now._ But she couldn't call with Wayne right there.

Andi allowed her face to change, to look as if she was weakening. Let Wayne think he'd won the argument—she had to put Pam first. And the quickest way to talk to her was convince Wayne there were things much more important than Andrea Taylor. "Alright then," she muttered, "I'll stick around, but just until you've got a better place to put me, you understand?"

"Fair enough. Are you—"

"Do you think I could have a minute to myself please?" Andi interrupted. She was pushing it, being rude, on edge, but MCU had just exploded and Pam was in danger and she just _had_ to get this wannabe hero away from her.

"Of course" Wayne said smoothly "I need to figure out what's actually happening anyways. And Alfred will be setting up your room." He stood to go, then paused. "You understand that you shouldn't leave the Manor grounds? At least not without me or until we can be sure the Joker's lost interest in you." He didn't sound any more thrilled with the idea than Andi was, but Pennyworth just smiled like it was all a very good joke.

"Of course. I'm not an idiot." Andi informed him. Wayne shrugged noncommittally and left. Pennyworth only delayed to tell her that he'd come for her when he'd prepared her room before he followed his master.

Andi waited until his footsteps had faded, then opened Bailey's phone again and dialed Pam's number, having to stop and start over twice her fingers were shaking so badly. Her friend picked up on the first ring.

"Pam? Oh, thank God."

"Andi! Andi what's happening? I was in the middle of research and then the two men guarding me got a call and rushed me away. Now I'm hidden in some place that looks like it's a bunker prepared for Armageddon with no one answering my questions!" Pam was as close to sounding scared as Andi had ever heard her come. Which was to say that she sounded both confused and angry enough to chew through nails. Andi didn't envy the patrolmen shut in a room with her right then.

"The Joker attacked MCU." Andi was surprised by the calm in her voice. MCU was gone, the Joker still had Leena, and she had go into hiding, but Pam was safe. She allowed herself to breathe again. "I'm fine, wasn't anywhere near it at the time, but Gordon thinks he came after me. That's probably why your protection's been increased too—you now have two connections to people the Joker wants. I'm going to be going off the grid for awhile, but I wanted to check that you were alright and make sure you know that I'm safe. If you need to contact me, go through Gordon or, if it's an absolute emergency that can't wait, call me back on this number." She seriously doubted the Joker would have either the computer skills or the patience needed to triangulate a phone signal. And even if he tried to find _her_, the phone was registered to Bailey instead. There shouldn't be any reason for him to try tracing the phone.

"He was targeting _you?_" Pam's voice heated even more. "Andi I can't just—"

"Yes you can Pam. Whatever it is, you can. But I think you should get out of the city. Things are getting too dangerous here."

"Are _you_ leaving?"

"I—I can't Pam." Andi shuddered. The Joker was targeting _her_. For a second she wished she could call Gordon and take it all back. Let him get her out of there. She'd heard the North Pole was lovely this time of year. No. She couldn't abandon her friends. "With most of the police force gone, I might be the only person with the knowledge and equipment to analyze the crime scenes. And those might be our only chance to get to Leena."

"Well I'm not leaving either then." Andi could practically feel the heat from Pam's glare coming through the phone. "I'm doing important work too."

"That poison antidote?"

"Exactly. I'm getting closer and closer to unlocking it. I can't leave while—"

Andi heard shuffling footsteps coming up the hall again and hurriedly broke in. "Pam, I have to go. The people guarding me don't know I'm calling."

"'The people guarding you?' They aren't the police? Who—"

She hung up, but hadn't put her phone back in her purse when the butler opened the door. His eyebrows raised and Andi tried not to look too guilty, but he didn't comment. "If I could take you to your room Miss Taylor?"

"Thank you Mr. Pennyworth." Andi bit back a gasp of pain as she stood up. The aspirins were kicking in, but they were no match for the heavy pain medications her body was used to. This was going to be a very sore few days. She still had her prescriptions in the car, but Andi knew she couldn't take any of the stronger drugs if she wanted to stay alert. Antibiotics and more aspirins would have to do.

"Just call me Alfred, Miss," the butler told her as he led her out of the room. Either the guest rooms were on the first floor or… Alfred… was perceptive enough to notice the trouble Andi would have climbing another staircase. He avoided it in favor of a hallway near the parlor and kept his pace slow enough that Andi kept up easily. Strangely, she felt a surge of affection for the old man. Well, if she could make a truce with a masked vigilante, was there any harm in making friends with his kidnapping butler? Besides, if she was going to be staying here she might as well try to keep things pleasant with at least one of the people in the house.

"Can I just go by Andi then?"

Alfred returned her grin with a gentle smile. "Very well, Miss Andi."

He opened a door that led, not to a bedroom as she'd expected, but into an elegant sitting room filled with light.

"Your bedroom is through that door." Alfred pointed. "And that one connects to the bathroom."

Andi nodded, trying to hide her slight discomfort at being in a room like this. She had never had much money and when she did decorate her tastes ran more towards modern and utilitarian. The polished, dark woods on the furniture, the pictures that were either originals or very expensive replicas, the antique clock ticking over an ornate mantelpiece... suddenly she felt like a kid in a museum, afraid to touch anything. "Um, thanks Alfred."

"My pleasure Miss Andi. You can call me on the intercom if you need anything."

"Thanks." Andi repeated. "I… I hope I'm not putting you out of your way or anything."

"Not at all." Alfred hesitated. "I should say that you aren't causing _me_ any trouble Miss Andi, but I'm afraid that Master Wayne isn't used to being around others who know his secret. This is something he's agreed to do because he thinks you need protection. It's a job that he will take very seriously. I would hate to see you put yourself at risk despite all his efforts, simply because you want to contact others needlessly."

Andi shifted uncomfortably, unwilling to argue after just forming their tentative friendship. After a moment Alfred relented.

"I trust there was a good reason?"

"I needed to warn a friend about the Joker and tell her that I was safe," she explained, "Otherwise Pam might have tracked me down and tried to rescue me herself. I doubt Wayne would have made it out of _that_ confrontation unscathed."

Alfred nodded solemnly. "If she's half as fearsome as you, Miss Andi, I think you might have the right of it. Just don't let it happen again."

* * *

The sound of the elevator coming into the cave broke Andi from a near trance, but she didn't look up from her lists of data. How long had she been working? Her concentration had been almost as engulfing as when she was performing Wayne's surgery, and once again she had lost all track of time. Still, if that gnawing feeling in her belly was any indication, it must have been hours since they'd returned from collecting the initial evidence from the parts of MCU she could enter. That had been at about six in the morning.

"Any luck on figuring out what explosives were used?" Wayne moved quietly; she hadn't heard him leave the elevator until he was suddenly over her shoulder, staring at the long lists of data in her hands. Andi jumped but didn't look up.

"It wasn't luck," she informed him, "It was science. And I had _that_ done in less than an hour. Looks like a whole lot of C4, probably detonated through a remote, even though several witnesses place the Joker at the scene. Here, you can look at the analysis." She shoved a folder filled with technical jargon like 'immunoextraction' and 'capillary electrophoresis' at him, but Wayne didn't take the hint and leave her in peace to try deciphering it.

"It's his usual style. He always wants to see the havoc he's wreaked," he muttered, setting the unopened file on top of another stack of papers. Andi rolled her eyes and re-filed it correctly. Disorganization was half the reason MCU never got through all it's work. Well, it had been until...

"So what else have you been looking through?"

Andi shook her head. Couldn't think of the tragedy of it right now; she needed to keep her mind on business. "That stack of supplies and papers over next to the TV are notes from the security cameras. They send their footage to another location just in case anything like this happens, so the videos weren't harmed in the explosion. I've been sorting through them, trying to figure out how the Joker managed to sneak that much stuff into the department without anyone getting suspicious. Plus I'm comparing that with the card swipes recording who entered the building when to see if I can spot anomalies. Not my usual line of work, but there isn't anyone else so..."

Andi felt her head go light suddenly and grimaced. She hadn't been feeling tired until Wayne came in and suddenly reminded her of just how long she'd been at this, how much more there was left to do. Her cuts ached, especially along that one in her scalp. That one just made her entire skull feel enflamed. She swallowed and made herself speak in the same brisk tone. "I'm also working through the DNA samples we got, fingerprints, and dental records on the computers, and making much more progress on that front. I have to admit, your labs here are better equipped than the whole forensics department was, even if you have them stuck in a cave."

"Fox taught me some stuff. He offered to help too, but he's analyzing everything at Wayne Tower and working as Enterprises' CEO to keep the company from losing too much money in the economic panic. There's simply not enough time for him to do it. He's sent in what he has on Wayne Tower, though, so you can compare notes once you get through all this." Wayne pulled a chair over and picked up a list of card swipes, idly flipping through the pages. "We already have the Joker's identity established. Why bother with going through DNA and fingerprints?"

"It's not the Joker I'm trying to name, although finding out where he was and when might help. It's all the different people he killed. Some of them were too badly destroyed to have a chance for identification without a forensic anthropologist with weeks to comb through the remains, but I'm doing what I can. The families deserve to know."

Wayne's voice became much quieter. "How many?"

"I've identified eight so far, but we both know there were more corpses than that even if we avoided searching the unstable parts of the wreckage. Plus there are many more whose time cards record as being in the building but haven't been found one way or the other. Some are dead, and others may simply have escaped the explosion and not checked in afterwards with Gordon for one reason or another—the blasts went off at different times in different parts of the building, so they did manage to evacuate a good number between them. But it's also possible that the Joker took hostages. I wish I knew whether that was a good thing or a bad thing." More than half the forensic team was dead and Andi didn't have high hopes for the rest. Bailey, the sergeant assigned to protect her, had disappeared too. That almost hurt worse than anything. He shouldn't even have been there. Or she should have been with him. Or something. Foolish to think she could have done something to help him. But that didn't stop the thought.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Yeah," Andi shook her head to try to clear her thoughts and felt more dizziness course through her instead. Too much to do, too much for any one person. "Here," She stood up to show him the security footage, but somehow her knees didn't obey her orders. Wayne seized her arm before she could hit the ground and hauled her back up, ignoring Andi's pained gasp. He had grabbed her right on one of the Joker's knife slashes.

"How long have you been up again?"

"I haven't been to sleep," Andi admitted. "But it can't have been that long since we got back. I'm good for another hour or two at least."

Wayne raised his eyebrows. "'Can't have been that long?' Taylor, it is_ four in the afternoon_. You just got out of the hospital and you've been up for, what, twenty-four hours straight?"

"Something like that," Andi mumbled. Four PM? It was closer to thirty-six hours...

He just rolled his eyes. "Get back upstairs and sleep. I'll look through some of this."

It was a mark of how tired Andi was that she didn't argue, didn't even remind him to keep things in order. She shook Wayne's arm off of her, though, and walked herself to the elevator out of the cave. No need for him to see the way she stumbled on every little unevenness in the floor, much less the blood seeping through her sleeve from where his pull had yanked several stitches out. She wondered absently if she could sew it back up herself. She'd never really tried that sort of thing before, and it'd be awkward doing it left handed, but she thought she might manage.

When she reached her suite, though, Andi decided that she just didn't care how much blood she got on the bed. It was probably worth her life's savings to replace, but at this point Andi was well past the point of the worst exhaustion she had been through in med school. She didn't bother tossing off her tennis shoes or climbing around to the pillows, just collapsed face-first onto the mattress and let her mind shut down.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hey y'all, me again (who else would it be writing these?).

I worry that this post is a little cliche, with Andi having to stay with Bruce for protection and everything, but to be perfectly honest, I couldn't think of where else Bruce would really put her. Sure, he has safehouses, but all of the ones in Gotham have people living nearby who might sell her out. Staying in the manor honestly seems to be the most in character solution he would come up with on short notice even if it _has_ been done before.

Anyways, not much else to say about this one except that I hope you enjoyed and that after a SPECTACULAR football game, the Irish are going to a bowl game! Sadly, that only means one more possible Irish victory for my monster, so you know where to click...


	14. Understanding

**Chapter 14:** Understanding

Something brushed Andi's arm right at the cut, pulling her out from a fogged sleep. She tried to twitch it off, but whatever it was followed, now accompanied by a British voice. "Miss Andi? Miss Andi! You have blood all over the place!"

_That_ got her attention. Andi's eyes flew open and found that Alfred was right. The pulled stitches in her arm had leaked into a small circle of red soaked up by the eiderdown comforter she'd fallen onto.

"Oh! Oh Alfred, I'm so sorry, I just sort of crashed here and… oh gosh, what a mess." Andi pulled herself up into a sitting position and grimaced at the blanket. Ruined. And, although she didn't feel nearly caught up on sleep yet, the pain in her arm was now keeping her very much awake.

"Don't apologize Miss," Alfred sat down next to her on the bed. "Just let me see what happened."

"It's—it's nothing."

"I see. As is your limp and the fact that you were hospitalized for five days before you came here. Master Bruce may believe others heal as fast as he pretends to, but I know an injured person when I see one."

Andi sighed but didn't resist when Alfred pulled up the sleeve on her blouse. He gently fingered the cut across her arm, then left for her bathroom, muttering something about 'foolish people trying to be heroes' and 'too much like Master Bruce.' Andi didn't think she was supposed to have heard the last one.

"Hold your sleeve up for me," he ordered when he reappeared, a needle and thread held in one hand. Andi thought about trying to refuse but she wouldn't put it past Alfred to knock her out again to make her stay still. Besides, she _did_ need the stitches.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?" Alfred asked as he started to work. He hadn't been lying when he'd said he could fix most injuries; his stitches were neat, firm, and very deft for being made by such an elderly man. That hardly made it pleasant, but Andi set her teeth and refused to twitch. Bad enough that he'd already figured out her injuries. She did _not_ intend to make a baby out of herself over a few stitches. Besides, flinching would just make his job harder.

"The Joker got me," she admitted, purposely keeping her voice nonchalant. "Several times."

"Ah. Does anything else need seeing to?"

"No!" No way was she letting Alfred see her back. He might tie her down to keep her from exerting herself.

"Hmm." Alfred eyed her skeptically before returning to tying a knot and carefully taping gauze over. "Well, that should hold your arm together for now."

"Thanks." Andi made herself stretch her arm out, twist it around. The cut ached, but Alfred's stitches were holding better than some of the sets the doctors had done. He probably had lots of experience considering who his employer was. "Where is Wayne? Still in the cave sorting through information from the police department?"

"No, Miss, I don't believe so."

"Where then?"

"I don't think he would want me to—"

"Alfred. Please. Don't play games with me. Where's he gone?"

The butler hesitated. "I'm afraid there was another attack by the Joker." He muttered the words, as if he didn't want Andi to pick them out.

"Why didn't you wake me up?" Andi demanded. Alfred avoided her eyes. That, more than anything, was what sent the chills of intuition down her spine. "Alfred? Tell me. Was it somewhere with Pam?"

Still no answer. Andi stood up to face him, panic now seeping like ice through her veins, freezing her heart.

"So help me Alfred, I like you well enough, but if my friend's in danger… _where did he strike?_"

"Doctor Isley's laboratory."

Andi's eyes bulged, and for a fraction of a second she forgot how to breathe. _Not Pam too!_

"How long ago was this?" she whispered.

"About… six in the evening."

Andi glanced at the clock. 9 PM.

Before she quite knew what was happening, she was sprinting down the hallway. Alfred tried to follow and somehow kept close enough behind that she could still hear him shout after her. "What exactly do you plan to do Miss Andi? What can you do for her if she's there? And if she's not you'll just be another target."

"I don't care!" Andi screamed. _Pam._ "I don't care, I don't care, I just need to—" she skidded to a halt at two joining hallways. Right or left? Left. She turned down that way, and almost ran straight into a tall, caped figure coming from the other direction. It took her a split second to realize that it was Wayne in his ridiculous costume.

And then all of her vaunted self control shattered.

"_You promised me!"_ she shrieked. Wayne took a step back and Andi followed, shaking with rage. "_You promised me! You promised me her safety! WHERE IS SHE?_"

He grabbed both her shoulders, whether to make her shut up or stop her from backing him into a wall Andi couldn't say. "Calm down. Your friend is fine."

Andi glared, a hair short of physically attacking him. "Where? Where is she?"

"Safe. I promise."

"You're avoiding the question! What happened to her? Where is she now? And why the hell didn't you wake me up the moment you knew she was in danger?"

"Miss Taylor." His voice was the guttural 'Batman growl.' For the barest moment, Andi felt a sliver of terror that was for herself, not Pam. The feeling only enraged her more. "I understand that you are upset. But I had to put Dr. Isley's safety first. And you would have made things more dangerous for both her and yourself if you'd come."

"Where—is—Pam?"

Wayne paused. "I don't know."

_"WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON'T—"_

Wayne released one of her shoulders and covered her mouth with his hand. _"Listen to me,"_ he growled. "I know that she's safe. Gordon insisted on moving her last night once things at the police department calmed down. When I arrived at the lab I found out she hadn't even been there since noon yesterday. All there was for me to do was help the others caught in the blaze and collect forensic evidence for you. Pam's gone underground, and Gordon won't tell even me where he's stowed her. She's safe."

The details didn't get through pound for pound, but the gist somehow made it past her fury. Andi's muscles loosened and she sighed heavily around Wayne's hand. _Safe._

Wayne rolled his eyes and released her so that he could take off his mask. His voice automatically became smoother and calmer, as if he had shed part of his aggression with his persona. "Now. I left the forensics I gathered in the cave. And my notes from the security tapes from the precinct are there too. Are you up to working on them?"

"Don't try to pretend you did nothing wrong." Andi said flatly. Her terror had drained out, but the fury was still there, irrational though she knew it might be. "Or patronize me by acting like this never happened. You promised me no secrets. The next time _anything_ like this happens, I should be the first to know."

Wayne frowned but nodded. Andi turned on her heel and, completely ignoring Alfred, stalked to the caves. She had work to do.

* * *

"What are you _doing?"_

Andi spun to find Wayne staring at her in her apron as if he had never seen anyone cook before. She purposely made her voice casual.

"Alfred won't mind if I use his kitchen will he? I'll clean up after myself and pay him for the groceries."

"That wasn't what I meant. What are you doing making—what are you making?"

"Migas. It's a Mexican dish. Can you pass me the cutting board with the jalapeños?"

Wayne made a face at the peppers as Andi added them to the pan with the frying tortillas and onions. "So why are you eating this 'migas' at three in the morning? I thought you'd either be asleep or in your lab."

"I'm hungry. I hadn't eaten in way too long and I just couldn't concentrate after six hours down there. Thought I'd grab an early breakfast." Andi started cracking eggs as she spoke, purposely keeping her eyes down and her hands busy. Cooking had always calmed her, another reason she had chosen to hunt out the kitchen. You added eggs and tortillas and other ingredients, you stirred and mixed the right ways, and as long as your pan wasn't messed up, you got the right thing. No errors. With everything else going on, she needed a little reliability right now.

"Listen, Wayne," She _hated_ doing this. It was worse than thanking him had been. The words had to force themselves past her throat. "I'm sorry about earlier. Me losing my temper… I know you were just trying to help."

"Don't worry about it." Wayne leaned against the counter and sighed. "Believe me, I've seen the Joker at work. I don't blame you for wanting to protect the people you love. I know what it's like."

Something in his tone made Andi look up. "That's right. He took someone for you too didn't he? I thought it was just the tabloids making a big deal out of Bruce Wayne losing someone until I realized that the only reason the Joker would go after her was because of the Batman. If she knew both of you identities… she really was your friend wasn't she?"

Wayne nodded, his face tight.

"What happened?"

"She died. Obviously."

Andi flinched, as much from Wayne's tone as the images that _that_ conjured up. She had tried to keep the thoughts from her mind, but this time of night, or really any time when she wasn't focused on her work, it was all too easy to envision what the Joker might be doing to Leena, or Pam if he ever caught her. But at least, right now, there was still hope. She didn't _know_ that Leena would die. The whole point of being here, in fact, was to make sure that she wouldn't.

The silence stretched awkwardly between them until Andi finished adding cheese and turned off the stove. If he was the host and it was his food in the first place, she supposed she should do the polite thing. She hunted around until she found a pair of plates, then turned to him. "Ummm… do you want to try some of this?"

Wayne looked startled, as if pulled out of his own thoughts, and gave the food a wary look. "Why did you put jalapeños in your breakfast? And if it comes to that, why are you even eating a taco for breakfast?"

Andi grinned wickedly, glad to move onto a lighter topic. "You Northerners. Even Pam can't take the good hot salsa, and she claims to have eaten a spider before."

"Didn't you grow up in Gotham too?"

"Yes but Abuelita made sure I was properly educated. You should have tried some of her recipes; she must have had a tongue like leather to eat all those spices."

Wayne laughed, then surprised her by lifting one of the tacos off of a plate and tentatively biting into it. She waited for several seconds.

"Well?"

"Not bad." Wayne looked surprised to admit it, then took another, larger, mouthful. "You know, I would have had you pegged for an Asian rather than Hispanic," he said through the food.

"That's on my mom's side," Andi shrugged, "But it was my paternal grandmother who raised me, and she was Hispanic through and through. Taught me to cook and such. Among other things."

"She did a good job. You know your stuff Taylor."

Andi gave him a mock-angry look and swallowed quickly so she could answer. "I always know my stuff. And my name's Andi. You sound too much like my boss when you call me Taylor, and I don't want to fool myself into thinking I have to listen to you."

He arched an eyebrow. "Fine. But hearing 'Wayne' all the time gets annoying too."

They ate in silence for a couple of minutes, until Wayne—no, Bruce—cleared his throat. "Have you found anything from the lab or the police station yet?"

"I've IDed more of the bodies we looked at from the police department, and some of the initial findings are starting to come back from the forensic anthropologists. Good thinking with sending so many to the Jeffersonian. That team gets the job done _fast._" Andi sighed. Half of her wished the team hadn't moved so fast actually; they'd been the ones to send her the news that the rest of the forensic team was all dead. Still no sign of Bailey or about a dozen others, but with everyone else's bodies turning up, their odds of survival weren't exactly high. "And it seems like he used an old mob connection to get his explosives into Major Crimes. One of the cops Gordon's had his eye on for awhile apparently managed to rent out about twenty precinct lockers and paid other cops to use theirs too. That must have been where he stored the C4. As a cop, he wasn't exactly going to be searched when he came in, so it was probably pretty easy to smuggle."

"Where is he now?"

"A freezer shelf. His body was discovered badly burned and crushed in the explosion, but Gordon moved him to the front of the autopsy line as soon as I e-mailed him what I'd found. They pulled out a bullet from his skull; he was already dead when the building blew. The Joker must have shot him to prevent him from telling what had happened. Or where he'd strike next. Gordon's sent me his accounts and personal information so I can try to find any of his other associates, but I'm not too hopeful. The mobs know how to disguise their tracks from official detectives, and when it comes to finding people with this sort of evidence, I'm strictly an amateur. And all the Gotham professionals are in the hospital or trying to keep the streets from rioting right now. With the Joker loose and half the force out of commission… people are either panicking or seizing on the chance to cash in without getting caught. The Joker might be the catalyst behind it, but Gotham's doing most of the damage to itself right now. Which is probably the whole idea."

"I know. I've been out all night trying to stop the worst of it." Wayne grimaced. "The mayor's already asking for the National Guard, but with all the red tape and so many bureaucrats outside Gotham stalling because they think the city's a basket case, it looks like it'll be too little too late. Katrina all over again, only completely man-made this time."

Andi sighed. Too much. How long before the city collapsed under all this? No doubt that was another part of the Joker's eventual plan. "As for the lab," she continued, "The building was old and so many organic chemicals are flammable that it's hard to tell what actually detonated in there. It was probably something small, but it set off a huge chain reaction that just made an entire wing go up in a fireball. I'll still find whatever he used, but it might take me awhile. The whole side of the building is gone, worse even than MCU; that was just badly damaged. Still, things were luckier with the labs."

"How so?"

"Well, the Joker struck at 6 in the evening instead of the middle of the day, and in a side wing rather than the main part of the building. There was a staff meeting and a couple of workaholics sticking around, but the majority of the employees were gone. And the labs don't have as many people working there in the first place. Most of the workers have been found safe and sound, and I've been able to match all the bodies you got forensics on to the missing person's list Gordon sent me around midnight. It's funny though. We're a body short. A man named Alan Holdgrove is still missing."

"Any connection between him and Dr. Quinzel? Or you and Dr. Isley?"

"Not except for the obvious fact that he was Pam's co-worker. She's never mentioned him, though, so I doubt he's too important to her."

"Is it possible there's some sort of mistake and he's just not been found? I mean, you said the blast was worse than MCU's."

"That's a possibility. The thing is, though, that he already swiped out of work, so he shouldn't be missing at all. Maybe he forgot something and went back, then got caught in the blast, even though his office was on the other side of the lab from the explosion. Maybe. But it could also be that the Joker has him. And look at the big picture: he definitely has one person—Leena—from Wayne Tower, possibly more people from MCU, and now there's a good chance he's kidnapped someone from the labs. It might be nothing, but then it might also add up to a pattern."

He nodded slowly. "Anything else worth noting?"

"Yes. The Joker was apparently on-site for this one too. At least, a witness placed him on top of the roof of a neighboring building, although everyone was so panicked... well, people see what they expect to see in those situations. Most bank robberies, people will be so traumatized you'll get five different descriptions of the getaway car from three people, and this was even bigger than that. There wasn't a sign of Leena, though, so if he was there he must be keeping her somewhere else. That implies a center of operations, some sort of home base he can go back to, work from, and keep her hidden."

"Or he may have already killed her and not have anything like that."

Andi shook her head stubbornly. She wouldn't allow herself to consider the possibility of Way—Bruce's words being true. "I'd know if she was dead. I would. Besides, he probably still has some sort of place he works from, at least to store explosives. I want to go to the roof and see if he left any sign of where that is."

"Can't hurt at least, although I'll have to take you, you understand. We can go sometime tonight while it's still dark. Any other ideas?"

"One more." Andi took a deep breath. She'd been planning to come to Bruce with this in the morning, but maybe it was better like this. It was the first time they were both actually having something like a civil conversation, and maybe that would make him more willing to listen. "Right now, fighting the Joker, we're playing defense. All we can come up with are ways to pick up the pieces _after_ he does something. I think we need to make him react to us instead. Play offense."

"That's possible for most criminals," Wayne frowned, "But have you ever tried to figure out what could be used to manipulate the _Joker?_"

Andi made her voice stay strong and confident. "We know he's going after Leena's friends. I think we could manipulate him with that."

Bruce stared at her for several seconds. "You're not suggesting what I think you're suggesting are you?"

"Well, why not? I expose myself, the Joker captures me. He might suspect it's a ploy, but you're known for attacking the minute someone's threatened. If you hold off instead… I mean, he doesn't even know we're working together does he? So there'd be no special reason for him to think it's a trap as long as you don't come rushing in to save me like you did for Dent. And if he really wants me so badly, he'll have to bring me back to his home base at _some_ point. You can wait until then and use that to track the both of us to wherever he's working from."

Bruce stared at her with his mouth hanging open and Andi folded her arms stubbornly. "It's a better plan than just waiting for him to attack again and seeing what we can learn from it," she insisted.

"Only if it works," Bruce pointed out, "If it doesn't, we're not even sent back to square one, we go farther back because your skills as a forensic scientist are lost too. You're too valuable. If anyone was going to be sent on that sort of suicide mission, Dr. Isley would be the better choice because she knows something on how to fight and she's less valuable. But I've promised to protect her, and besides I've tried setting up bait for the Joker before. That—that was the biggest mistake I've ever made."

"Your friend that the Joker got?" Andi hesitated, "Rachel Dawes?"

Bruce's face closed off the same way it had when Andi had mentioned her before, his emotions as completely hidden as if he was wearing the mask again. "Yes. Her. Her death only happened because the Joker let himself get caught. We thought we could bring him down, and instead he was one step ahead of us, turned all our great plans into a way to kill her and make Dent go mad. I refuse to let that happen again. Even to a volunteer."

"Forensics can only take me so far. They'll tell me what _has _happened, not what will or how to stop it. Some things might turn up, but I really doubt it will be enough to help; contrary to what the movies and crime shows say, the villain rarely just happens to leave convenient clues to where he's been, not when he's an expert like the Joker. My own suggestion on the other hand…" Bruce opened his mouth to protest and Andi hardened her voice, leaping in before he could speak.

"Alright, fine then. Say the worst happened and things went wrong with my plan." Andi tried not to think of exactly what that would mean for her. "Say they did. Even so, I'd still probably get close the Joker right? You know firsthand how much I can find out about a person once they've come within twenty feet of me. Even if it went south, there's enough opportunity there that I might still be able to actually get information that would help catch him. Catch him and save Leena—and remember we agreed that it's her not me who's your first priority."

"Information which you'd never be able to share if you died."

"So put a hidden camera and mike on me. You and Fox know enough to spot anything I find. And you should be able to recover any evidence I manage to snatch as long as you get my body."

He considered it. Andi could tell that he honestly considered it. She didn't know whether to be exhilarated or scared stupid by the idea of placing her life in the Joker's hands, much less Bruce Wayne's. She was no hero, she was simply desperate and scared, so scared that she thought it might be easier just to do this and get it over with instead of hiding. But when Wayne looked back at her, she could tell what his answer was going to be.

"Sorry Andi. You're right that it has a slim chance of working, but then again your forensics does too and it's much less dangerous. At the very least, give it another few days to see if any useful patterns emerge. If not… well, if not, then come to me again. If you're still crazy enough to want to try it, I'll see about setting something up."

_Let it rest,_ half of Andi's mind insisted. _He's right. The Joker won't fall for this. Have to protect yourself._ But no. That was wrong. She had to protect Leena, not herself. And she was so sick of being hunted. She made her back straighten, put a bit of a glare in her eyes.

"So that's it?" she demanded, "You're just going to let the Joker strike again? You _know_ he's going to and you're already planning on how we can use those deaths to our advantage rather than how to stop them? I never put you down as a coward Wayne."

Bruce looked at her as if she'd slapped him, and Andi ruthlessly pressed her advantage. "You're not afraid of risking me. You're afraid of facing the Joker and falling short again. You're so scared that you'll even sacrifice others rather than confront your fears. Well I'm not going to let that happen. I'll do whatever it takes to bring him down. And I'm doing this with or without your help."

She could see him judging the risks in what she suggested, trying to be rational. But she'd found the right buttons. She could see how the scales were tipping. Leena. This would work. Just think of Leena. No need to be afraid. This was what she wanted. "Fine," he snapped. "Fine. It will take a day or two to set up properly. In the meantime do all the tracking you can because I doubt you'll be around to work on it later."

Andi wished she could feel a sense of victory.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yes! That's right! I, Irish Luck, have not only survived and passed my final semester of Organic Chemistry, I have also managed to type up and send out this chapter two full days early. I might well fail my Calculus final on Friday but, hey, you can't have everything in life. Plus, if I'm really lucky, I may get word back soon on whether I've been accepted to do service work in India this summer, so it's been a bit of a hectic week for me!

Migas, for any of y'all who are wondering, is a fantastic breakfast taco that varies quite a bit by region. Actually I've heard that in Spain it's a type of soup, but the Spanish can be a little strange... Point is, I wanted to flavor things a little bit with a piece of Andi's heritage and give a small shout out to Tex Mex at the same time. For any and all of you who haven't tried it before—or actual authentic Mexican food in general—I highly recommend it. Any Mexican food served north of the Red River is just wannabe and Taco Bell isn't even worth mentioning. Besides, it's hilarious to watch the non-natives try to eat real salsa! (Hint: chips are better than water for cooling the burn. Water won't get the chemical that latches to your tongue to release, but chips soak it up).

Well, now that I've owned up to how much of a Mexican food snob I can be, I'm also going to admit that there was a tiny cameo given to one of my favorite TV shows in this post. I only started watching it a couple of months ago, but it's really grown on me and I've been galloping through several seasons of it. Did anyone manage to spot it?

And, lastly, let me say that the ending of this chapter kinda took me by surprise. Andi was _supposed_ to agree with Bruce and say that they'd try later if they absolutely had to. Now that she's persuaded him to do what she wants instead... well, let's just say my outline may as well go through a paper shredder for all the good it's going to do me in the next chapter or so. So if anyone has a brilliant ideas on how _you_ would track/bug a murderous raging lunatic without him knowing it, I'm all ears.

I guess I could go on about how the Irish BEAT USC and ARE GOING TO A BOWL GAME WHEN THOSE CHEATERS AREN'T, but I promised the last paragraph was the last one, so I won't say anything else on that topic. Everyone have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, or whatever other holiday you're celebrating!


	15. Gambles

**Author's Note:** Just a quick note here to say that, if you're skipping Leena's points of view, you're free to do that with her scenes in this chapter BUT there's also an Andi scene midway through that you _do_ need to read. Also, the Leena scenes here definitely earn their teen rating, so please keep that in mind if you don't like reading violent scenes.

* * *

**Chapter 15: **Gambles

"But there's got to be a way out!" The newest addition to Jay's funhouse, a young and rather stringy man in glasses, paced around like a caged animal. Like a pendulum. Back and forth. Back and forth.

Leena shook her head. _Focus_, she ordered herself._ Keep a grip on things._

"Locked doors, steel enforcements on the smaller ones," Bailey ticked off the points on his fingers, "High, small windows with iron lattices, no one and nothing inside except the three of us and a madman armed with knives and explosives…"

Despite herself Leena couldn't concentrate on their conversation. Jay would come out of his room soon. It was close to his leaving time and she knew he would pay attention to her again. He hadn't all day, except for tossing a bottle of water her way at the same time as he was dragging in the limp body of this scientist—Alan Holdgrove she remembered—nearly an hour ago. So he was bound to talk to her when he left.

Something they were saying drew her attention.

"Used to be able to tackle anything in high school—"

"More a scientist than a fighter, but I'm mad as hell right now—"

"If I held him off and you ran—"

"No!" Leena gasped as their plans finally crashed through to her, "No you _can't!_ Don't you realize what he'll—"

Jay's door opened and neither of the men paid any attention to her, staring pure hate as he watched the three of them, head tilted to one side. For once, the terror on Leena's face wasn't just because of what _Jay_ would do.

"Ah well," he muttered after a second, "Might as well get it over with. Come on then." He was looking straight at Bailey.

The policeman hesitated and Leena could practically see his mind clicking. A trap? Or was the Joker bluffing? Or was there some sort of trap he would trigger if he hesitated or attempted something clever? He seemed to decide on the straightforward approach.

He charged like a bull, faster than Leena would have thought possible for a man of his girth. In a second he had dragged Jay to the ground, arms locked around him and Leena heard the Joker give an appreciative cackle while Bailey pulled an arm away to pummel—

Leena was more interested in Holdgrove. The second Bailey attacked he bolted for the main doors, presumably still unlocked so Jay could leave. Leena felt a bubble of hope. She knew she was doomed of course. Jay would kill her before he allowed her rescue. And Bailey too just to spite her. But if Holdgrove at least got out, if the police managed to catch Jay…

The doors didn't budge.

Holdgrove slammed into them, furiously yanked at the handholds, tried to pull them up, and nothing moved. "Come on!" he screamed across the room to Leena, "Help me!"

Before Leena could even consider it there was a loud thwack from the center of the warehouse. Jay hopped up. Bailey stayed down. She watched, paralyzed, as Jay bounded across to the doors to where Holdgrove was still struggling furiously with the door. He seized the scientist by a shoulder, spun him so that they were face to face, and struck him hard in the stomach, the nose.

Holdgrove wasn't as tough as Bailey. He went down fast.

"Hmm. Not quite the best escape plan," Jay commented, shaking his head as he pulled out a key, dangled it tantalizingly above Holdgrove. The scientist paid no attention. From what Leena could see with the way he was hunched over, hands on his face, he seemed to be trying to stem a bloody nose. "Anyone with a _little_ thought _might_ have realized that I wouldn't just leave two strong people and an open door. Really, the only one with a brain here is little Harley."

He tipped her a wink. Leena swallowed, but he turned his attention back to Holdgrove. "Ya know what Al? Uh, can I call you Al?"

"You son of a b—"

"Aw, hush," Jay rolled his eyes, "I think Harley _deserves _something for her good work. Hmmm…" He looked around the room speculatively, then his eyes were drawn to the two men on the ground. "Which one Harl?"

Leena felt something cold in her stomach. "What do you mean which one?" She had a sinking suspicion that she knew what he was after though.

"We-yell," Jay rolled his eyes, "I'm gonna have to punish _one_ of 'em. It wouldn't be, uh, _fair_ to let both of them off. So you choose. Which one?"

Oh gosh. Leena tried to breathe, but she could feel the spasming twinge in her ribs and chest cavity that kept her from completely filling her lungs. She would take it. She could take it. She wasn't that far gone. Not yet. Which one?

"Me."

Jay stared at her for several seconds, then burst out laughing. "And every time I think I've brought you down…" he smacked his lips appreciatively, "Ah, Harley, Harley, Harley… no. _That's_ not an op-ssshhhun." His lips settled to something between a grimace and a patient smile.

Leena didn't say anything. She couldn't.

"Aw, c'mon, Harl. If you don't speak up I'm gonna _have_ to do it to both of 'em."

_Think of it in medical terms. Triage_, Leena told herself_. If they were both patients, which one could physically afford it the most?_ Bailey was older, already beaten and unconscious, and had gone for nearly two days with nothing more than a little water from the bottle Jay had tossed them earlier. Holdgrove was younger, just lately kidnapped, with no other injuries than what seemed to be a bloody nose. Medically the choice wasn't difficult.

That didn't help much.

"Tick-tock-tick-tock," Jay hummed, "And… five… four… three… two—"

"Holdgrove," Leena whispered miserably.

"Sorry, Harley, what was that?"

"Hurt Holdgrove!" Leena shrieked, then burst into sobs. She couldn't make herself watch, but she heard, heard the scientist yelling, cussing Jay, cussing _her_, heard the blows and the way the swearing slowly turned into grunts, then yelps of pain, accompanied by shrieks of laughter. Leena covered her own ears, a thin, keening wail coming from her own throat. _No. No, no, no no no-nonono!_ Somehow she locked out sound too, walled herself off, trapped inside with no one but the guilt and lurking madness that threatened to attack at any minute.

She didn't know when she came back to awareness. Jay was long gone, and both Bailey and Holdgrove were on the ground. She thought Bailey was still unconscious. Holdgrove was awake though, and he was staring at her with a mixture of anguish and loathing that perfectly reflected Leena's own feelings for herself.

Not knowing quite what she was doing, she pulled away, retreated back to that corner she had stayed in before Bailey had come, deliberately turned her back to the room. If Holdgrove decided she was worth attacking, well, she wasn't going to try and stop him.

He didn't though. Eventually Bailey woke up and Leena heard Holdgrove describing what had happened in a low voice. He came over to sit with her, but Leena ignored him. After awhile she fell into an uneasy sleep and when she woke up he was gone too.

* * *

"Alright," Bruce lifted a replica of Andi's GSU class ring from a velvet-lined box and handed it over. "The GPS locator is hidden in here. It's not water resistant, but otherwise very sturdy. Keep it on you at all times because it also holds your panic button. Twist the top stone and it'll send me a message that you're in danger."

"And the signal will reach you no matter where you are?"

"That's right. I'm not letting the receiver out of my sight while this is happening, and it has a beeper setting in case I'm asleep when you use it. Just don't let it off of you. Anything else we can afford to lose, but not this, you understand?"

She nodded and slipped the wide gold band on, her face pale but set. Bruce eyed her critically. Nothing about her appearance suggested that she was bugged as thoroughly as he knew how. The microphone and speaker set was planted invisibly inside her ear; there'd be no missing anything she said and he could keep her updated without a problem if he needed to. The two cameras, each equipped with their own GPS sets, were blended into a pendant necklace and the toe of her right shoe. The one on the necklace also kept track of her heart rate, temperature, and breathing.

She still looked frighteningly vulnerable, especially compared to him, dressed in his bulletproof suit equipped with weapons and gadgets. Once again, Bruce had to fight down the guilt rising in his stomach like bile. What was he thinking? Was he really so desperate that he'd send an unarmed woman, even this one, up against the Joker?

As always, Taylor was keeping her head with almost inhuman coolness. She was paler than usual, but her whole attitude was crisp, businesslike; she stood at complete ease in the middle of the Batman cave, having a casual conversation with him about her planned capture by a serial killer. She was either insane or much, much braver than he was. "How long do you think until he comes after me?"

"It depends." He tried to match her professional tone. "It'll take a little while for word to get out that you're alive and in Gotham, especially since you're in a protection program to keep your actual purpose hidden. And he seems pretty content now, blowing up buildings and snatching random people off the street every day. He might not even come after you. It's hard to tell with him." Bruce shrugged and returned to the other paraphernalia sitting on the same stainless steel table Andi had used to operate on him. "Now. That's all I have for tracing you unless you want me to surgically implant a tracker or something."

Andi threw him a disgusted look.

"Hey, that's what Alfred was suggesting!" Bruce raised his hands innocently. "Be glad I talked him out of it. Anyways, the other things here deal with tracking the Joker. We don't know what he's going to try, so I'm giving you several other things that might be useful once he finds you. I had to go with small objects, though, that can either be hidden or explained away if he finds them. More than anything, he can't know that this is a set-up."

Bruce held up a shirt from a stack of clothes he had sent Alfred out for earlier. Hopefully they were the right size and style—he didn't exactly follow women's fashion, but Andi always seemed to be wearing jeans and sneakers, and he couldn't see anything like that in the pile in front of him. She looked rather nonplussed. "What, did you think I looked fat in these clothes?"

Bruce had never claimed to understand women, but he knew better than to start on _that_ issue. Least of all with a woman who already detested him. "Alfred got these yesterday," he said hastily, "Along with basically a whole new wardrobe. I've coated all of it with chemicals that will emit radio waves. I've got a network set up all over the city to sense for it and, while it will find you most easily since you'll be the one wearing most of the chemicals, he'll pick them up too if he tackles you or even grabs you hard by the arm. Try to get closer to him if you can, get more on him."

Andi raised her eyebrows and nodded approvingly. "What else?" she asked.

"These." Bruce handed her a pocket knife and a bottle of mace.

Andi snorted. "You honestly think that _the Joker's _going to be beaten with a little pepper spray?"

"No. This isn't pepper spray. Oh, it'll still sting the eyes, but more importantly it's also got the same radio wave substances in the spray. Use this if you can't get close enough to him to use the clothes or even to make an actual escape attempt if you need to, and I'll pick up the signal to track him down. The knife has its own tracker. Obviously, use it for self defense, cutting bonds, or whatever, but the real trick is if you can slip it into the Joker's pocket. He probably won't notice it's even there with all the others he has. Plus, it also carries a couple of detachable trackers in the hilt. See?" He twisted the bottom and several small black buttons fell into his hand. "They reattach to the knife and are sticky on one side. Slap them onto his back, in his car, whatever, and we'll be able to find him even if—"

"He kills me and ditches my body." Her voice was matter-of-fact, nervousness only betrayed by the slightest tremble. "Makes sense."

Bruce's face fell. _Who am I fooling? Pepper spray? A knife? I might as well be sending a kid with a paper sword against that maniac! _"Andi you don't have to—" Bruce took a deep breath and moderated his voice. "I mean you're contributing here and there's still got to be some other way—"

"I've found as much as forensics can find Bruce." She folded her arms and somehow looked down her nose at him despite being several inches shorter than he was. "The Joker's good, he's not going to make a stupid mistake that'll lead me to Leena. All I've found are patterns that are obvious to everyone. He attacks once a day. Random place, random time ever since he blew up Pam's labs. Kills as many as he wants, but there are always bodies missing. Probably kidnapping them for one of those twisted games of his. And when everywhere he's been has blown up and doused in water from firehoses, whatever traces he left would take years to find. The only thing I _might _ever get anything on soon are the explosives, and those vary so much I don't think there's any way he has just one supplier we could track down."

"But still to use you as bait—"

"Are _you_ actually worried about _me?"_ Bruce was shocked at the shock in her voice.

"Of course I am! You're being sent up against a man who has killed well over a hundred people and barely used a gun!" Bruce drew closer to her, until she had to tilt her head back to look at him, made his voice low and intense. He had to try talking her out of this at least once, and although she wasn't the sort of woman to be intimidated, every little bit of added authority helped. "Listen. You don't have to do this. There's no need to play the hero. I'm not going to lie and say there's absolutely no chance this will work. But it's much _more_ likely that you'll die, slowly and painfully, without learning anything. I don't want that. I don't want it on my conscience and, more importantly, you shouldn't have to go through it."

She kept quiet for so long that Bruce began to hope that he had gotten through at last. Then she met his eyes with complete openness, for once not trying to stare him down. "Say it was you," she said softly, all the bravado gone from her voice. "Say he had someone you loved. Would you stand by because you were afraid?"

"I—" Bruce opened his mouth to say, Yes, he would do just that. He would be sensible and find other options that didn't involve things like making himself a walking target. His voice betrayed him, though, stuck in his throat. It was insane. This woman, one of the people he had given his life to protect was going to die just like Rachel. And, just like Rachel, he was going to bring it on her. He couldn't match her steady, steely gaze.

"We should go," he muttered, turning away towards the refurbished Tumbler. Andi followed.

"You know, my own car would work perfectly fine," she told him as they climbed in. Bruce shook his head.

"It's too obvious. If you were really hiding out, you would have been smart enough to abandon your car from the start. We can't let anything signal that this is a set up." Highly unlikely that the Joker would try to track Andi through something as mundane as her license plate. But then again, he seemed to thrive on 'unlikely.'

She just nodded and stared absently out the window as he burst through the waterfall, seemingly as listless as a kid on a long car ride. Her quiet was unnerving. Bruce was used to her near constant questions, her careful observations that catalogued everything in sight. The Tumbler's stunts ought to have had her sitting straight, trying to figure out the physics and materials involved. Clearly she was thinking of something else, and from the way her eyebrows were knitting together, it was probably something difficult. Perhaps the danger of what she was actually doing was finally sinking in.

"You know you're not like people say you are."

"What?" He had never understood how this woman's mind hopped around.

"I thought you were ruthless. A cold-hearted manipulator at first. Even when I learned you weren't a murderer I still thought you were… well, a ruthless cold-hearted manipulator who just happened to fight on the right side."

Bruce's mouth twisted. "You know, I never would have described myself as that until tonight."

"You're being stupid then."

"Right. Because sending an innocent person to do my dirty work isn't being a cowardly—"

"It's being smart. I'm going one way or the other. All you did was choose to make it worth something by giving me proper equipment." What was _wrong_ with this woman? Three days ago she'd been glaring at him like he had run over her puppy, and now she was doing this. Bruce decided to just change the subject.

"Gordon's not happy about this," he told her, "He nearly took my head off when I told him you were coming into police custody instead of mine. And he's pulled enough strings to have nearly a dozen federal marshals assigned to you for round the clock protection."

"He's got no right to do that!" Andi gasped, "How is this supposed to work when I'm kept in swaddling the whole time?"

"First of all," Bruce said, "I never mentioned that you were planning to be kidnapped. Otherwise Gordon would have sent assassins after me and shipped you off to Alaska no matter what you wanted. Second, if you don't have that protection, things will look suspicious. I don't think any number of marshals will protect you from the Joker if he wants you badly enough."

"And if they get hurt or killed when the Joker comes after me?"

"Then you'll have to learn to live with it." Bruce purposely made his voice cold. Somehow it was easier to say when you used that tone. Or at least he pretended it was. "Just as I will if you get hurt. Unless you want to back out now."

He pulled up in front of the safe house, a dilapidated apartment complex with barred windows and a packed parking lot. From the area of town it was in, he thought Andi might have to worry about her safety just walking down the street as much as she would the Joker. Well, at least that was _one_ danger the marshals should be able to protect her from. And he'd added his own security as well; cameras and most other bugs in the apartment itself would be spotted, but he'd set up laser microphones angled at the windows, cameras monitoring everyone who entered and left the building… it would do.

Andi simply stayed where she was, staring at the building. Bruce felt a slight bit of hope well up. "Last chance to call it quits," he offered.

She shook herself. "No. Thank you." It sounded as if she actually meant that. Bruce pressed the button to open the door, but Andi twisted around to face him.

"You know, I meant what I told you Bruce. You are a decent person. I misjudged you earlier. And I know you'll do all you can to protect me in this." She took a deep breath and held out her hand. "Friends?"

Bruce hesitated, then gently took it. His huge gloved hand engulfed hers but she somehow kept her grip firm and even pulled up a smile.

"Good hunting."

She left before Bruce could return the wish.

* * *

Leena stayed there. Jay dragged in another person the next day—a woman this time. Leena didn't bother learning her name. Didn't leave her corner. _I want to die_.

Every now and then she had wished that. With what he had done to her. But now it was real. She was at the brink of insanity; better to die first than to fall into that pit. She was ready.

Slowly a plan formed in her head. Suicidal. But then, that was the whole point. She folded herself up in the corner and resolved to wait until evening again. She hadn't eaten all day, but somehow it didn't matter. She was surprised it ever had.

Jay stepped out of his room, prepared to leave for the night, when Leena made her move. She pushed herself up. Calling to him was out of the question without water to moisten her throat, but she didn't care. Her movement made him come over and that was all that mattered. "Yeah Harley?"

One chance. She would have one chance. "Leena."

"What?" His voice went deadly. Perfect.

"I'm… Leena, Jay. Still Leena."

Silence. Then Jay leapt at her, punched her square in the face. Leena felt her shaking legs give out…

And as she fell she plunged one hand into his coat pocket, felt her hand close on something and pulled it out with her. Flick knife. Her finger moved on the catch and the blade sprang out. She twisted it towards her own throat—

And Jay's kick nearly snapped her wrist in two. The blade skittered several feet away and Leena crawled towards it desperately only for Jay to step hard on her back, pinning her like the butterfly in an insect collection. She tried to struggle, then gave it up, sobbing relentlessly. _So close_.

"Suicide Harley? _Rebellion?_" Jay sighed, then bent over her and picked up the knife. "I _reee-_ally hoped we were past this." He plopped himself down on her back, nearly snapping Leena's spine, and twisted her arm behind her so that he was holding her hand, almost wrenching it from its socket. Leena stayed still, crying out a bit at the pain in her arm. She saw the woman—blonde, young—shout something and start running towards her, but Bailey grabbed her around the waist and hauled her back. The look in his eyes… Leena put her head down and stared at the concrete instead.

Something sharp and thin dug between her nails and the tender skin underneath, and Leena shrieked. The switchblade. Her back tried to arch under Jay, her legs thrashed, but he kept moving it, _wiggling_ it through her finger no matter how she bucked and screamed.

It pulled out and Leena's muscles collapsed, her shrieks lessened to quiet mewling.

"Your _name_."

Back up plan. If she couldn't kill herself, maybe he would do it. "Leena. Lee—"

Shrieking. Bleeding. Questions. Again and again and _again._ Repeating her name, the world turning red, one of her nails finally being pulled all the way off. It was worse than the beatings, worse than anything she could imagine. Shrieking and bleeding and questions and—

"WHY CAN'T YOU JUST KILL ME ALREADY?"

The pain relented and Jay stroked her head suddenly, giggling. "Was _that_ your plan lil Harley? You wanted me to _kill_ you?"

The knife was still in the hand mussing her hair. Leena tried to jerk her head backwards into it and Jay pulled away, chuckling to himself. "Look, Harl, this is _pointless_. Just tell me your name. I'm _not_ gonna kill you and you've just gotta get used to the fact."

"No. NO!" He had to be joking, he had to be pretending. Because if he wouldn't kill her, if Leena had to live—

"Ya know what your problem is Harl? You just don't see the _funny_ side of life. I mean—" Jay hopped up. Leena closed her eyes and turned away but she couldn't block out his words, "There's _you_. And you've got all these _rules_ that you think will keep you happy and safe. And when they _don't_, you get so—so worked up about them you just wanna _die_. And then there's _me._ See _I_, I don't have all these _rules_. And without them… I'm _fine_. If you'd just wake up, you'd see that you're just the victim of a… cruel prank. I'm trying to _help_ you. I'm trying to make you realize it's _fine_ for there to be no rules." Jay paused and Leena dully turned her head to face him. He gave her a smile that might have been charming on another man. "I mean, look at _me_. _I'm _still normal."

_He means it_, Leena realized, _he actually means it. This is how he sees the world. And he thinks he's helping me by making me like him_.

"So. Let's start with the easy stuff." Jay squatted next to her. "What's'yer name?"

Leena hesitated. He was twirling the knife between her fingers. So close… and so far. She felt a whimper build in her throat. "Harley," she whispered.

* * *

"You killed my _sister!"_

Despite her listlessness, the pain, the absolute _anguish_ in the voice made Leena look up at the newest person Jay was dragging in. Conscious this time. That was a first. And young. He was tall and gangly, already taller than her, but his voice was still high pitched. He almost looked like a young Michael Jackson really.

"You son of a bitch! My sister! _My sister!_ She was only _six!_ I'll kill you myself, I'll rip you apart, I'll—"

Jay shoved him to the floor and shuffled towards Leena. His breathing was somewhere between laughter and giggles. "Harley, will ya come and look at this jokester—"

The boy leapt onto his back, clinging to him like a spider monkey. Jay sighed and straightened. "Will ya _please_ get off kid? I'm busy with something here."

Somehow the boy wedged an arm against Jay's throat and it was as if his action triggered something in the other three prisoners. Bailey and the woman sprinted over, Holdgrove following much more slowly—one of his legs hadn't worked right since the beating. There was no plan to it this time, no organization. As Jay fell to the ground, the boy still cutting off his air, the others attacked with desperate savagery. Leena turned away at the sound, at the fighting. Part of her wanted to help them. A larger part wanted to just curl up and imagine that it wasn't happening.

Suddenly there was a shriek and a crack. Leena's head whipped toward the sound and saw that Jay had at last succeeded in pulling the kid off of him. Jay was holding hard to the kid's wrist, the arm bent in the wrong direction, and spun with him so that the kid swung into Holdgrove. Bailey and the woman were still up, but as Bailey darted for him, Jay grabbed the woman around the waist and pulled out a knife, swiped across her chest.

Bailey stopped dead but Jay paid him no mind. The woman shrieked, struggled wildly against him. He was like a shark that had scented blood, frenzied and laughing manically. He dropped the knife and brought his face within an inch of hers. A gloved hand reached out to claw at her face, dip lightly into her eyes, rip and squish in the sockets as if he enjoyed the strange texture. The woman's back arched and she let out a bone-shattering wail, distilled pain spun into a duet with his hysteria.

"STOP! Jay _stop_ you're going too far!" Leena shrieked. She didn't know where she found the will to do it, but suddenly she ran forward, leapt at his arm and hung on. No violence, but if she could just distract him—

He flung her off, Leena spun through the air, and then she was on the ground, her arms barely getting out in time to protect her head. She rolled over to see Jay, knife back in hand, turn his attention to the woman again. His knife flicked over her, slashing across, darting into her body, plunging in and ripping free. She had never thought he could restrain himself, but suddenly she realized that he had every time he tortured her, even that time he beat Holdgrove. Now he was letting loose, his laughter almost as loud as the girl's shrieks, blood spattering everywhere and there was _nothing_ absolutely _nothing_ Leena could do to stop it…

Jay released her suddenly and the girl stumbled forward, falling on her hands and knees. Red syrup dripped from her mouth and her eyes were bleeding everywhere, masking the rest of her features. He turned to Leena, his face splashed and speckled with gore, as if he'd applied the red part of his make-up wrong. He brought the knife up to his lips and Leena could swear she saw his tongue dart out, barely sampling the blood before it disappeared again. Then he held the blade out to her.

"Wanna put her outta her misery Harl?"

Leena's eyes flashed at the girl and back again. No way she would survive this. It would be almost a mercy… but…

No. She couldn't. She _couldn't_.

"Suit yourself."

Leena didn't know whether she had actually spoken aloud or if Jay had simply gotten tired of waiting, but he flipped the blade back into his pocket and left, only pausing to kick the woman in her mauled ribs on his way out.

* * *

It took the woman a very long time to die. Most of the night. Leena stayed alone, watching silently as her moans became softer, with longer spaces between them, then stopped altogether. The others all clustered around her, which meant that she had to stay away. Privately she was resolved not to go near them. After Jay had killed that woman… maybe he would have done it without her interference, maybe not. But now she realized that the only protection she could give them was to stay away from them. She should have known it all along. Jay was playing with her, and to him these innocents were only disposable pawns in his game.

_Maybe Jay's right_.

She'd been trying to fight the thought all night, but it wouldn't go away. What was the _point?_ What was the point of caring? If caring only got others killed wouldn't it make more sense to stop? Maybe not caring would save them. In this insane new world he was putting her in… maybe the only sensible way to live was his way. Godless. Alone. Frankly, it made more sense to her right now than her own beliefs did.

After all, where had her morals gotten her? Halfway to insane and several people dead or almost there. Whereas Jay… well he was in the same position, but he _wanted_ to be that way. If the situation was a given, maybe just liking it instead of fighting would make more sense. Who knew?

Leena thought about it. For the first time, she seriously considered just giving in. It would be so easy. It would make her happy again. She could just let go and be free… Jay would like that. He would be happy too. And if none of the others could be, maybe making Jay happy would be worth something… after all, he was trying to help her… maybe if one path only brought misery it made sense to try another way…

_No_.

She was like a rubber band released on the verge of snapping apart. No. Leena jerked, rubbed her eyes. No. She wouldn't do that. No.

And it wasn't because it was the right thing to do. It wasn't because she felt like she could resist. It was because she realized that with that decision would go the last of her sanity.

* * *

**Author's Note:** I know, I know, I'm a bit late with this one, but I hope it was long enough to make up for that!

I'm a little concerned about the violence in Leena's story; I think it can still get away with being in the teen section, but to be honest I'm hesitant. If someone thinks the chapter earns a rating change, I'll either edit and tone it down a little or consider switching the story to mature, even though I think _Unmasked _as a whole fits better with a T rating. Also, this should be the only chapter with blended Andi/Leena storylines. I tried to avoid it, but the chapter just worked better as a mesh of both stories no matter what I did.

Oh, and a shoutout here to **Monday the 14th** who not only helped me realize that Bruce needed to bug Andi's apartment in some way, but gave me a really cool idea on how he could do it. Also, a thank you to LOST for making me absolutely horrified at the idea of sticking anything sharp up my fingernails. At least this time it was a knife and not bamboo shoots.

Anyways, Irish are going to their bowl game tomorrow! Cheer for them as we (hopefully) push that winning record higher.


	16. High Stakes

**Chapter 16:** High Stakes

Three days after she'd left, Andi was still wondering if she'd made the right decision.

When she'd first volunteered for this, she had naively thought that she could merely return to working for Gotham PD as if nothing had happened. But both Bruce and—especially—Gordon had had other ideas. Between the two of them, Andi was hidden so well that she doubted the Joker could find her even if he was looking, something she wasn't too sure of at this point.

She hadn't been allowed to leave the apartment for more than five minutes at a time, and so she was now curled up, as she had done more and more often lately, on a horrible orange couch, its stiff bristles poking through her new designer clothes, watching the TV listlessly for news on the outside world. While the marshals were polite, they were also professional to the core and refused to be drawn into small talk, leaving Andi stuck watching GCN for information, just like the rest of the city. And she'd only been allowed to speak to Gordon once in an unsuccessful bid to decrease her protection. With half of Gotham on the point of revolting, she'd have thought that he'd be happy to put some of the marshals to better use. Instead she had gotten a brusque scolding and was told that, no, she would not be allowed near the police station to work with evidence and, no, she could not contact Pam under _any_ circumstances. She had conveniently forgotten to mention that Pam had her cell phone number, but so far her friend either hadn't been able or hadn't needed to call.

"Ms. Taylor?" The leader of the four man unit currently babysitting her tapped her shoulder diffidently. She had nearly snapped his head off when he'd startled her earlier in the day to ask what sort of take-out she wanted. "It's nearly one in the morning. Would you like to go to bed?"

No, Ms. Taylor _wouldn't_ like to go to bed. No matter how she tried to fix it, her sleep schedule was still skewed by the events of the past week. The past month to be honest; ever since Alfred had kidnapped her, she'd become more and more nocturnal. Still, Andi supposed she had better call it a night and pretend to sleep, if only so that these marshals could trade shifts and get some rest themselves. She nodded and went into the musty cubbyhole of a bedroom to change, pulling off both of the cameras first and carefully facing them towards the wall. Trust only went so far, even with a friend like Bruce. He had his playboy reputation for a reason.

A burst of static in her miked ear made Andi pause in the act of pulling on her pajama shirt, but it went quiet a second later. She hadn't communicated with Bruce at all in the past few days, nor had sightings of Batman even been reported on the news, what with the Joker and the swelling chaos taking up most of the air time.

Strange that his not being there should be something Andi regretted. After only three days without him, she felt as if she had walked back into real life from a fairy land. Without the solid evidence of Bruce Wayne's double life in front of her eyes, his whole existence seemed fantastical, as shadowy a legend as he'd been before she'd unmasked him. Not to mention that Andi missed having Alfred to help her with her bandages. Her stitches were almost healed, but changing them and checking for infection on her own was a cumbersome business.

The Joker, on the other hand, was becoming more and more present in her life. Although Andi had had no chance to review evidence on him, she found herself constantly looking over her shoulder for him to appear. The television stayed on at all hours, waiting for news, and his attacks were becoming more and more deranged and flagrant. He had struck in the middle of her first day away from Wayne Manor at a mental institution, then the day after that at a nursing home. At least twenty total were killed in the explosions and, as Andi had suspected would happen, people were reported missing in each one. Just over an hour ago she had heard of the latest attack. He had waited until 11:59 PM today—yesterday now—to blow up half of North City Park, causing an unknown number of deaths among the homeless. Nobody had come up with a missing person's list yet, but Andi was willing to bet another hostage had been taken from there too.

One of the marshals coughed loudly in the other room and Andi jumped. She had been taking quite long enough to change; no doubt they were wondering if the Joker had snatched her from her bedroom window like one of the women from _Seven Brides for Seven Brothers_. He coughed again and Andi rolled her eyes, poked her head out the door.

"It's alright, it's alright, I was just—"

There was no one in the room.

Andi froze, a deer in headlights. The marshals were gone. Who had coughed? Not important. They had vanished and she instinctively knew what that meant. She had left the cameras in the back of the room. Andi knew that she should go move for them while she still had the chance, but her eyes caught movement. A head of green hair peeked above the couch's back and slowly turned from the TV towards Andi.

"Don't, um, worry _too_ much about it. I don't think they mind much of _anything_ right now." The Joker giggled again, the same sound Andi had mistaken for a cough.

Something in Andi's mind managed to re-start. Her thumb fumbled at the ring, turned the panic button. Bruce's voice sounded in her ear as if he'd been waiting for her to switch it on.

"Andi? Andi what's happening?"

"Could I—could I at least grab my shoes first?" She hoped that would clue Bruce into the fact that she had been so _stupid_ as to let the camera sets out of her sight.

The Joker burst out laughing. "Oh _very_ good Tay-lurrrrrr. But, um, no."

He stood up and Andi's screaming brain finally made the connection to her legs. If she could only get to that knife, just reach one of those chemically-treated shirts instead of these tattered old pajamas… She tried to bolt, jumped back into the room, slammed the door—

He jumped in before it could close, before she could even fully turn, and they crashed into the room together, the Joker on top. She gagged on the stench of fish and old blood, thrashed like a trapped animal. _Have to get out, have to get loose! Just five damned seconds!_ The Joker whooped and growled toyingly at her, the way other people did when tussling with a small dog. _Why_ hadn't Bruce put anything on her pajamas?

_ Have—To—Get—Free!_

Instead of trying to slither loose she struck, teeth first, straight at the face. Greasepaint and dirt. She dug deeper and got hot dripping blood. She wanted to gag but held on, locked her jaw. A hand finally got free and she wedged it against his waist. If she could only use it to—

The Joker howled and then slapped both of Andi's ears hard. Agony lanced straight through her head, her eardrums felt shattered, and she thought she felt the microphone crunch. Her jaw relaxed and he ripped free, heedless of the chunk of flesh he left in her mouth.

"Trying to give me new _scars, _hmmm? You wanna know how I got these ones?" He nodded eagerly, a sick light in his eyes.

Andi spit the bit of his face clenched in her teeth straight at him.

"Oh I _like_ you! Little Harley just cried and begged, but _you!_ _You_ have a mean streak!" He grinned insanely, bared his yellowed teeth at her as if threatening to bite back. "Arrgh! Rawr!"

Andi rammed her forehead at his nose, but he darted back and then grabbed her head with one hand, slammed it hard against the floor. White stars burst everywhere in Andi's vision, and then they were literally rubbing noses, his face so close to hers that he was blurred. "Wanna go again? You know, you almost make up for how _boring_ it was to toy with Lit-tle Lee-na! I—"

The mention of her friend's name. Andi couldn't describe what she did. No limbs free, no leverage, no momentum, and she somehow _surged_, propelled herself up and him with her. They rolled, the Joker still wrapping her in his long limbs. Her knee rammed up, trying to aim between his legs, but he blocked, slammed her into the door frame. The shock to her spine laxed her muscles and the Joker sprang off to sit on her chest, a knife at her throat.

"Now, now!" Andi could see his tongue running along the inside of his scars. "I, um, I like games too, but I need to get _going_. Or else those _other_ marshals will come and that would end all the _fun!_"

His mud-colored eyes darted to her face and suddenly stayed there, zeroed in on something, his frenzy pulled into a concentration all the more frightening by his lack of focus before. Andi froze as his free hand suddenly reached out to her hair and delicately plucked a pea sized chunk of plastic and wiring free…

Part of the microphone. Damn.

He raised his eyebrows at her and nodded appreciatively, as if she'd told him some big secret, then hopped to his feet. Andi tried to crawl away but he hauled her up by the neck of her nightshirt, threw both his arms around her from behind and whispered in her ear. "Oh. I, uh, forgot to mention. You're now invited to the party. You see, uh, the _Batman_ won't come out to play unless you do too."

Andi twisted and fought, but he barely seemed to notice as he dragged her from the room.

* * *

"Alfred? Alfred I need visual!"

"I've put it together sir, but her personal ones are still only showing me the walls of Miss Andi's room because she's not wearing them. The others have been disabled somehow."

Bruce swore and pushed the Tumbler to an even higher speed. The Joker had to have high-tailed it to get from North City Park to Andi's 'safehouse' because the apartment was as far away from the park as you could get in Gotham. "What about her GPS signal?"

"Still strong and steady sir. I'm sending the map to the Tumbler's computer right now. She seems to have been moved into a vehicle of some kind."

"And the audio?"

"Gone now that they're out of the apartment. The Joker broke her microphone and the laser ones are only set to listen to her rooms."

Bruce grimaced. The microphone. The Joker had found Andi's microphone, had put together why she was bugged, what their entire plan was. How had things gone so horribly wrong? More than anything else, Bruce wanted to pull her out _now_, but he could almost hear her screaming in his ear to leave her to at least give the whole escapade a chance to work. And without other ways to track the Joker, the hope that he would lead them back to his lair might still be their best chance. His at least. _Her_ chances were free falling with every moment he left her in that monster's grasp.

The computer beeped at him and a glance showed Bruce that Andi's car was heading almost in his direction, angled towards the river. "Tell me if you get anything from her or traffic cameras," he ordered, "Make sure that satellite's following the car she's in. I want make, model, plates, the works."

"Very good sir."

Bruce nearly ran straight into a riot, careened sideways and took out a streetlamp avoiding it. He threw the Tumbler into reverse and shot through a back alley instead, tearing through the parked cars crammed inside as if they were cardboard stage props. Had to get there in time, had to find her. His foot was nearly flat on the gas pedal. "And get the police on this too!" he spat, "Gordon needs to get people out of the Joker's way!"

He sped across the river into downtown Gotham, and found that he was almost on top of Andi's signal. The Tumbler skidded into a parking lot to hide and had just entered stealth mode when a huge purple church van swung past. Bruce didn't need to glance at the GPS to know that that was it. The van was the only one on the road and it was weaving drunkenly from lane to lane, a hair from spinning out of control. Before Bruce could decide between Andi and the Joker, gunshots sprayed from inside like water from a sprinkler system. That was it. He was getting her out of there.

The Tumbler rammed into the back of the van, sent out a shower of darts to puncture the tires. The van swerved away yet again, skidded, and suddenly a figure was flung loose, twirled wildly, left a fiery trail of bullets in its wake from the machine gun it shot as it fell. The Joker. Bruce barely kept himself from ramming into him, then pulled up short as he saw the van, Andi still inside, plow straight into the river. For a split second it bobbed up, and then something broke and the engine dragged it under.

No time for the Joker. Bruce stripped off the cape, the heaviest of the body armor, flung himself from the Tumbler, and dove straight into the river.

Pitch blackness, ice and filth engulfing him. He could barely tell which way was up and the current plucked at him, twirled and embraced him like a living thing, dragged him away from the van and downwards. Bruce thrashed against it, lungs bursting, and wrestled his way to the top until he could get his head above water, disoriented and gasping.

The river had swept him downstream, the water, the air, all dark, couldn't tell where he was facing, where was the water or the air or the shore… He plunged again, forcing his way against the current, scanning desperately. Couldn't see the van couldn't find—

There! Headlights flicked on, fifteen feet ahead and to his right. Andi had figured out how to signal him.

He surfaced again, breathed as deeply as he could, and plunged. Fifteen feet. Might as well have been a marathon. Bruce somehow forced his way towards it, but he was taking too long and Andi might try to leave the car, but he couldn't think about that, she'd be there, she'd be there, she'd be there, it wouldn't be like Rachel, no one else would die for him. Trying to reach her in time and he wasn't making it and he had to save her again, had to make it right had to—

The current hadn't pulled the van. Bruce came level with it, gulped in more air, dove again.

His eyes were wide open, but even with the headlights he had to cling to the van, feel his way along the metal frame until he came to the passenger door. Both windows were half down, the whole thing already flooded. Andi was in there, trying to force the door, her movements somehow slow and desperate together. Bruce met her panicked eyes for the briefest second, motioned her back and then pulled. Door still stuck. He yanked again, grinding metal, and then he was in, had grabbed her, was kicking up. For such a small woman she was a deadweight in his arms.

Everything was ice, his limbs numb and slow, his lungs shrieking for air, and then he'd clawed his way upwards, managed a choked mouthful of water and air and was pulled back under. _Like a riptide. Don't swim against it. Go with it, angle for the bank. _His legs flopped more than kicked, barely kept his head above water. Here he was in top physical condition and five minutes of this had exhausted him; had Andi managed a breath this entire time? _Can't think about it. Can't help her if I'm one step away from drowning._

His legs were so numb that he felt the movement stop before he really sensed the mushy ground beneath him. His limbs were overcooked pasta, but he somehow stood, slogged to the shore, Andi held against his chest. Barely past the shoreline he collapsed, somehow avoided crushing her.

She wasn't moving under him.

"Come on! Come on, Taylor, _get up!"_ Bruce had thought his adrenaline had run out, but it spiked again as he rolled over, sat beside her. Not breathing. No pulse. He started chest compressions, breathed into her mouth. No movement.

Again.

Again.

Again.

"Damn it Andi, don't you dare die on me!" He slammed his fist into her chest once, twice, thrice. "Get UP!"

Water and river filth spewed from her mouth like a fountain, her eyes flew open. Bruce turned her onto her side so that she wouldn't choke again and for several minutes there was only the sound of her ragged breaths, interrupted periodically by retching. He sat back on his heels. Alive. He signaled for the Tumbler and waited for Andi to recover. His mask was still on, all the headgear inside that he used to contact Alfred probably beyond repair by now. Nothing to do but wait.

Andi sat up gingerly and Bruce moved to support her weight with one arm. She spat to one side. "What—what happened?"

"'What happened?' You almost drowned is what happened!"

Rough coughing. "I know that. I mean—what happened—with the Joker? What made you decide to attack?"

"I had microphones listening from outside the room, so I realized you were in trouble. Thought about trying to play it out anyways but after the gunshots I couldn't just leave you in there."

"Good choice." Andi's voice was still hoarse, gasping. She shouldn't be talking at all, but Bruce knew better than to try interrupting. "Joker was about to—to kill me. If you didn't show up soon. Wouldn't have taken me anywhere important."

"Well he got away. Jumped out of the van at the last minute. No doubt he's running wild again."

She made a noise that wasn't quite gagging. Bruce turned her by the shoulders to face him and realized that her tremors were harder than ever. The cold. But that wasn't quite it either. She was… giggling.

"The joke's—on him after all."

"Andi?" Had the Joker given her something? Hit her in the head? "Andi are you alright?"

"Better than alright." Andi grinned up at him, her expression somehow fierce despite its weakness. "I slipped my GSU ring into his pocket."

* * *

**Author's Note:** What's this? Another early Irish update?

Yes! As celebration of an Irish bowl victory (and as a consolation prize to the Ducks... what a heartbreaker), and for my last week of break, I managed to write another post in nearly record time. Actually, it would have been out sooner, but I was having technical problems.

I'd like to thank all the random strangers who put up with me walking up to them on the streets and asking what _they'd _do to find where their kidnapper was from if they were in Andi's situation. No, seriously. I got desperate enough trying to brainstorm this chapter that I asked just about everyone I could find how they'd figure out where a murderous maniac was going to take them before they got to their destination. If you don't mind being considered insane, I'd recommend the experience; answers were really interesting to say the least.

Oh, and for the record, I did include (or at least imply) the part where Andi managed to get her ring into the Joker's pocket while he was distracted. Anyone manage to spot it?


	17. Tracking

**Chapter 17:** Tracking

"You do realize that that was the worst stunt you could have pulled?" Bruce asked for what felt like the hundredth time. Andi huffed.

"What else was I supposed to do? There was no other way to track him and he was about to kill me, so even if I had any information it would have vanished with my death."

"And if I hadn't been watching that van, I would have followed him instead of you, and you'd be dead!"

Andi sank back in her seat in Wayne's Tumbler and put a hand to her forehead. She did _not_ want to be having this conversation right now. She was nauseous, cold, and breathing took effort. Everything ached, and she knew it would soon get worse as the numbing chill of the river wore off. "I know that Bruce," she said wearily, "But once I realized he knew what our plan was, I figured I was dead however you spun it. I just wanted to… to make it matter. Now are we actually going to go anywhere in this thing or not?"

He growled something unintelligible and the car roared to life beneath them. Andi perked up to look for the heater, but noticed something else on a computer map—

"Look, there's where the Joker's heading!"

"Towards the harbor." Bruce muttered. "I wonder whether it's a ploy or his actual hiding spot?"

Andi didn't hesitate. "His lair."

"You sound pretty certain."

"He smelled like rotten fish. None of his kills have been in the area, and it was strong enough that I'd guess he's been there pretty often. I grew up in the Narrows, and trust me the stench from the dock area doesn't come off for days once you've been living there for awhile, no matter what sort of soaps you use."

Bruce nodded slowly, then pressed a button.

"Master Wayne!" Alfred's voice was very nearly panicked under the stiff British accent. "Sir, what happened?"

"Nothing too exciting," Bruce shot Andi a warning look when she opened her mouth. "We have a tail on the Joker and Andi's safe with me. She looks miserable though. Can you get some antiseptics out and something hot to eat? We'll be home in a few minutes."

"Very good sir. Anything for yourself?"

"Food's always welcome but, no, I'm not injured if that's what you're asking. A few towels would be nice for both of us though."

"They'll be waiting in the cave when you come in."

"See you then." Bruce pressed the button, then settled back in his seat.

"Why aren't we going after the Joker?" Andi demanded as Bruce began to maneuver his monster of a car from the river bank onto a deserted stretch of road. He gave her an incredulous look.

"What do you mean 'why aren't we going after the Joker?' You couldn't even walk to the Tumbler on your own!"

"I could just sit in the car while you did your thing."

"No." Bruce's voice was iron. "You almost died once tonight. I'm not putting you in the line of fire again."

"You would do it to yourself no matter what you'd been through!"

"That's different."

"How?"

Bruce gave her a hard look. "Because I've already made my peace with dying. You think you have, but it's not the same for you, with your friends and co-workers. There's no one who would lose too much if I was gone."

"Alfred would."

"Alfred has agreed to the risks, and he's already dealt with losing me once. He's tough, he'd make it."

"I would then."

Bruce looked as startled at the words as Andi felt. She scowled at him and folded her arms defensively as if admitting it had somehow been his fault. "Well I would! You're a friend. You've saved my life twice and you're… well with Pam and Leena gone, you're the only person I can really depend on right now. I wouldn't want to lose you too!"

He kept quiet, looking straight forward, until Andi began to shift awkwardly in her chair. "Thank you."

Andi would have snorted if she could have trusted her thawing nose not to run. "Don't thank me. The fact that I need you alive to find Leena is a big part of it too."

Bruce just shook his head and tossed a phone at her. "I transferred Bailey's number to this cell. Gordon will probably call soon and I doubt he'll just take my word for it that you're still alive."

"May as well get it over with then." Andi punched in the Commissioner's number. He picked up immediately.

"You give her back _now_ you son of a bitch or I will carve that smiling face of yours into—"

"Commissioner? Commissioner it's me."

"Taylor?" Andi heard him take a deep breath, and his next words were _much_ more controlled. "Are you alright?"

"Yes. Batman rescued me."

His snort carried over the phone. "Nice of him," he said acidly, "To save you after he left you to die."

"It wasn't quite like that sir. I asked him to put me in your custody."

There was dead silence on the other line. "Did you just—" Gordon's voice was more menacing than Andi had ever heard it, "Taylor, please don't tell me this was all just a set up for the Joker."

Andi swallowed. "Um, could we talk about this later sir? The fact of the matter is that I'm fine now. Wasn't in any danger at all." She said the last line glibly and ignored the incredulous look Bruce gave her. If he got to lie to Alfred on this, Andi could do the same for Gordon.

"And the Joker?"

"Escaped, but we're closing in on a location right now. See? It was all fine."

"I suppose." Gordon's voice was much calmer now. Andi drew a ragged breath of relief. "Can you put me on with the Batman?"

"Sure thing." Andi passed the phone. Bruce cleared his throat and spoke in his rough 'Batman voice.'

"Hello?"

"WHAT THE HELL WERE YOU THINKING, USING ONE OF MY PEOPLE LIKE THAT!" Even in the other seat, Gordon was still shouting loudly enough for Andi to hear clearly. "IF YOU EVER EVEN _THINK _OF PUTTING TAYLOR IN THAT SORT OF DANGER AGAIN I WILL TAKE THAT CAPE OF YOURS AND—"

Bruce gingerly lifted the phone from his ear and set it in the backseat. Andi could hear the faint sounds of Gordon raging, but otherwise the car was quiet, its rumbling soothing beneath her. Andi leaned her head back and let her eyes drift shut.

"Hey." Bruce tapped her hard on the arm "Stay awake until Alfred can look after you."

Andi straightened and realized that Gordon was still shouting at nothing on the other line. She reached back and hung up on him, pocketing the cell.

"He's right you know. That was a mistake."

She gave Bruce an annoyed look. Back to this? "Look," she said flatly as they pulled through the waterfall and Bruce stopped the car. "It worked. Let's stop looking back and concentrate on the future alright?" Bruce pressed a button and Andi climbed out carefully on her own, just to prove that she still could. She had to grab onto the side of the Tumbler for support though, and Wayne's sharp look said that he wasn't fooled. Andi deliberately looked away from him to Alfred who stood several feet away and was holding a stack of fluffy white towels.

"Judging by the way you two smell, I would guess that you decided to travel via sewer Master Wayne."

"Close enough." Bruce grabbed a towel and started to pull off his waterlogged mask and body armor. Andi waited until his eyes were diverted before she staggered over to take her own towel from Alfred; she didn't want Bruce to see her struggle just to stay upright. Bless Alfred, they were _warm_, almost as comfortable as a hot bath would be. He pulled a chair over from her work station and Andi sank into it with a relieved groan.

"If that's the case I'm going to have to see to your stitches, Miss Andi, before you can go to bed. We don't want any infections."

Bruce's face emerged from toweling his hair dry. "Stitches? What stitches?"

"Nothing serious," Andi said hastily, "They're almost healed. In fact, Alfred can probably pull them out once I've cleaned up a bit."

"That didn't answer my question."

"Thanks a lot Alfred." Andi muttered. Now Bruce would never let her alone.

"Hmm." The butler paid no attention and gently began to wind his finger's through her hair, separating the strands so that he would have a clear view of her scalp wound. "Master Wayne, could you hand me the antiseptic? It's on the table next to the French onion soup. You'll need to look down for this, Miss."

Andi obeyed and a minute later Bruce had returned. She couldn't look, but from the smell, she suspected that he had also grabbed himself a bowl of that soup. Normally she hated soup, and loathed onions that weren't in Mexican food, but at the moment the stuff smelled heavenly.

Something stinging splashed onto her cut and Andi hissed. The stitches were still in, she thought, but some of the skin between them had pulled open. As Alfred finished daubing it clean with cotton swabs she heard Bruce demand again "How did that happen?"

"It was nothing! Just the Joker last time." Alfred deftly rolled up the sleeve of her damp nightshirt and began treating the slash there. It still hurt, but at least with that wound Andi could look Bruce full in the face. He didn't seem to be particularly appeased.

"I'm afraid you've gotten more of those stitches torn open." Alfred clucked his tongue and Andi sighed. No use trying to pretend that everything was still fine if Alfred was going to check anyways.

"At least one in my back's broken open too."

Alfred moved to check it.

"Would you mind explaining exactly what happened here?"

"What?"

"It seems as if the Joker has run over your back with a semi-truck."

"Oh. I slammed into a doorframe struggling with him." Andi ignored her protesting body and twisted to look at the damage herself. A long, livid bruise was forming across her lower back, pinkish with smeared blood and water where it intersected with her knife wounds, a few red squiggles where the blood had overflowed working their down. It looked more painful than it was, but that didn't say much.

She glanced up from her back to see that Bruce had circled around too and was staring at the damage with a combination of horror and pity.

"Would you mind keeping your eyes somewhere else?" Andi snapped the words to cover her blush. Friend or not, she still hated for him to see her like this. And besides, it wasn't as if he didn't have much worse—she'd seen how badly he was scarred and it made her cuts look like a five year old's scraped knees. "Go analyze something. See if you can follow the Joker or whatever."

Bruce rolled his eyes and began to pull his armor back on. Andi straightened, ignoring the difficulty she knew shifting would cause Alfred. You couldn't keep dignity hunched over like a turtle and leaking blood everywhere.

"Where are you going?"

"Back out. I need to follow the Joker now that you're safe and I've had time to recover."

Andi's yelp had nothing to do with the disinfectant Alfred was spreading across her back. Well, almost nothing at least. "You almost died tonight too! You're in no condition to be going anywhere."

"Andi," Bruce's voice held a bit of warning to it, "We've already discussed the differences between how far each of us can go. You know that—"

"I'm inclined to agree with Miss Andi on this one." Alfred said as he carefully threaded a needle. "What could you accomplish anyways? If you follow the Joker now and he realizes that you're coming, he may get spooked or pull one of his tricks. And you can't afford to capture him until he leads you back to his home. Leave him be for a little while."

Bruce hesitated. Andi folded her arms and glared at him. "If you're going I'm going too."

"And how would you do that?"

"I'd drive her sir." Alfred stood straight and mimicked Andi's stubborn posture. "Or we could all squash together into that contraption of yours. I've always wanted to take it for a spin."

It worked. A reluctant smile pulled at Bruce's lips and finally he removed his helmet.

"I should just set the two of you on the Joker. He'd volunteer to go to Arkham to escape the trouble you can cause."

Neither she nor Alfred said a word, but Andi sensed that the butler shared her smug sense of victory when Bruce turned to a huge set of computer monitors and began following the GPS. She was feeling more comfortable now, completely exhausted and achy, but at least warm again. More than anything she just wanted to fall asleep, especially when Alfred finished dressing her wounds, but the butler insisted that she eat and Bruce dislodged himself from the screens long enough to bring her a bowl.

Andi had just eaten enough that she had begun to taste the food again—and was therefore slowing down very quickly—when Bruce began to curse.

"No! NO! He found it that stinking son of a—"

"The signal's gone?" Alfred was nowhere in sight. Great.

"YES!" Bruce roared, "He tossed it in the harbor! Now we've got nothing. _Nothing_." He looked like he wanted nothing more than to throw several large rocks at the computers, but controlled himself with quick, sharp paces. Even Pam in a temper wasn't this bad. She took it out on things, where Andi could already see Bruce straining to bottle it back in. She'd have to defuse him before he exploded from the strain.

"We have plenty of things!" she said quickly. Bruce stopped his pacing and seemed to direct all his anger into a glower at her. Andi was getting better at ignoring those looks. Practice she supposed. "Think, Bruce. First of all, there's the plates from the van. I doubt they'll give us anything useful, but it's worth a shot. Then there's the radio waves. I wasn't wearing the clothes treated with them when he attacked, but some of the residue's rubbed off on me over the past few days and he tackled me pretty good. It's possible you'll be able to pick him up with that. And, most importantly, I think that he honestly didn't know the ring was there until he tossed it into the ocean. Given how much time he had, he was probably pretty close to his home base."

"Andi, do you have any idea how _large_ Gotham's waterfront is? He could be anywhere around the harbor!"

Good. He was starting to think rationally. Andi pinched the bridge of her nose. All she wanted was some sleep, but someone had to be the adult in this situation. _Think logically._ "He has to have a pretty large place to stay though," she said slowly, "Somewhere he can keep hostages and explosives. Why not involve the police? Start from where he last was before he found the GPS and have the police slowly—and subtly!—spread in a circle from there. Check out any large or abandoned buildings, get his scent from my apartment to the K-9 units and have them sniff around, that sort of thing. And then go find a punching bag and let loose because, believe me, this stress isn't helping you any and you'll need your A-game when you find him."

Bruce growled under his breath but finally nodded. "Gordon's not going to like doing anything I suggest right now."

"I trust—" Andi stifled a yawn "I trust you're both mature enough to handle that." She really should go upstairs to sleep. Alfred had probably already fixed up that grandiose suite she'd stayed in before. But this chair was comfortable too, and she was warm and sleepy and _safe_. Her body could relax here as it never had at the safehouse.

Bruce was talking on the phone already, his voice scratchy and guttural again. Hard to believe she'd found him so frightening only a few days before. Strange. Now… now she trusted him as much as—as Pam… or Leena… Leena… only a few more hours and it would be over… only a little longer and she'd be safe. Things would go back to normal… Andi would like that… she would… really…

* * *

Andi blearily opened her eyes in the overlarge, overstuffed bed Alfred had given her on her first day at the Manor. _Bruce._ He must have taken her upstairs. But the light was already dying—probably late afternoon—and by the way she'd burrowed into the mattress, she guessed he had moved her hours ago. What had woken her up then? It had been a noise, some sort of beeping... the cell phone?

It was still ringing insistently and Andi extricated her legs from the tangled covers so she could pull it from her still-damp pajama pocket. Lucky the water hadn't ruined it. Pam's cell number blinked up on the caller ID. Oh gosh. She must have heard about the Joker. Heaven help her, if Pam had found out that Andi had _tried_ to get herself kidnapped… Andi braced herself and flipped it open.

"Pam! Pam, it's alright, I'm perfectly fine—"

"What do you mean you're perfectly fine?" Pam's voice was strained, but not panicked or angry as Andi had expected. "What happened?"

"Didn't you call because—" Andi paused, cursed her groggy thoughts. If Pam didn't know, she certainly wasn't going to tell her. "Why did you call?"

"You told me if there was an emergency to call this number. That's still alright, right?" Pam sounded on the point of crying. Pam. _Crying._ Andi sat up straight.

"Of course. What happened?"

"How soon can you meet?"

* * *

**Author's Note:** Yay! Pam's back! I have to admit, even though she's the one in the trio with the least screentime, she's kinda my favorite of the group so I'm looking forward to seeing her again.

For the record, I think Andi's the only person in the world who could say something like 'It was just the Joker, that's all,' with a straight face. Anyways, this chapter was mostly filler, I know, but even Andi and Bruce need a break after what happened, and we're almost to the climax of the story; think of it as a last gasp of air/sanity before things go completely crazy. Besides, it was a chance for Alfred to get some more scenes.

Oh, and I passed 100 reviews last chapter! Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to everyone who's let me know what they think, especially to those like **Limplict, ChristianBale Girl 2010, Serendipity AEY, NeverTooLate03, wtchcool, Dontgotaclue88,** and **Monday the 14th** who have all been willing to stick with me through multiple chapters of delays, these rambling author's notes, and other shenanigans. It means the world to me, guys.


	18. Liar

**Chapter 18:** Liar

Despite being on the 'good side' of Gotham and only 5:30 in the afternoon, the park Andi pulled up to was nearly deserted. There were no children on the swings or slide set and only a few teens trying to be cool grouped around the merry-go-round. Their conversation was too soft, though, the random laughter jolting and shrill, as if they wanted to prove a point with it. They were as petrified as anyone else in Gotham that the place they were sitting would be the next target of the Joker, but unlike young children and their parents, the idiots were trying to pretend they weren't afraid instead of just moving to a less conspicuous area.

Then again, Andi knew she was a walking target and here she was standing in the open too, so she supposed she couldn't really judge them for it.

Pam had been the one to pick the meeting spot, and it had been a good half hour since she had called Andi, but her friend was nowhere in sight. Andi supposed trying to talk a set of federal marshals into letting her go on an outing might take awhile, even for someone with Pam's talents. She'd been lucky that Bruce had either left somewhere or was down in his caves and Alfred had been nowhere in sight when she'd left. Sneaking out had never been so easy as a teenager. She took a seat on one of the park benches and tried to convince herself that she could be patient.

It felt like an eternity, but according to Andi's watch she only had to wait for a quarter of an hour before Pam's hybrid drove up. It took her a minute to recognize it—the environmental bumper stickers had all been scraped off, and she thought the plates had been changed too.

Andi had been expecting several marshals, an escort at least, even if Pam managed to convince them to let her come, but her friend climbed out alone. Andi waved and Pam jogged over, undeterred by her high heels.

"Andi!" She said the name with a combination of utter relief and desperation, and her hug was both longer and tighter than usual. Andi tried not to feel too frightened by that. Pam normally hated displaying needy affection. "Andi, I'm so sorry, but I needed help and I didn't know who else to call with—"

"No, no, it's completely fine. What's the matter?"

"Where to start?" Pam took a deep breath and obviously tried to pull herself together, "Is your phone off?"

Andi gave her a confused look. "That's not exactly where _I _would have started. Where are the marshals?"

"I gave them the slip last night." She ignored Andi's widening eyes. "And I never had my phone on long enough for them to track me. But they're probably keeping an eye on yours too in case we meet."

Andi doubted that—for one thing, Gordon knew she was with Batman and wouldn't want to find information that could reveal Bruce's identity, and for another tracking a cell phone wasn't nearly as easy as the movies made it seem. She switched it off anyways, though, to placate Pam.

"There you go," she said, "We're good. Now will you tell me _why_ you decided to lose your police protection?"

"I had to… the things I've found… the plans I've made… I couldn't involve the police."

"I see," Andi lied. She stepped back and surveyed her friend critically. "You look awful Pam."

It was true. Pam's vibrant hair was frizzy and loose around her face, and her eyes were bloodshot, darting from place to place rather than resting anywhere. Her fashionable clothes were wrinkled and smelled faintly of chemicals instead of their usual flowery perfumes. Pam gave a hollow laugh as her gaze followed Andi's.

"Yes, I suppose I do. All the stress has me wilting. There are more important things to discuss though."

"Like what?"

"The sorts of things we shouldn't talk about here. Can you follow me in your car? I'll explain everything once we're somewhere safe."

With Pam acting like she was, every instinct in Andi's body screamed at her to not leave her friend's side, but she made herself override them and climbed in her car. Harder to stop were the worried thoughts that kept spinning through her mind as she followed Pam's car. Despite the pandemonium of Gotham's rush hour traffic—and, with the risk the Joker might destroy the highway, there were some true maniacs speeding through—Andi had to crank up a favorite old CD to almost full volume before it managed to drown her worries and useless questions. Pam was alright. She was. So was Leena. There simply wasn't another option.

Pam pulled up in front of a musty old hotel and barely waited for Andi before swiping her key card and slipping in the back door. The place was shabby, even worse than the apartment Andi had stayed at. Thin, stained carpet frayed in random places to reveal the concrete floor beneath, several of the lights shuddered in and out of existence, and the windows were grimy. The whole thing looked like a horror movie waiting to happen.

"You actually sleep in this place?" Andi asked hesitantly. Pam had grown up relatively wealthy; she doubted her friend had ever had to visit a place like this before now, much less stay the night in one. Did she know about the vermin that probably infested this sort of motel? _The Joker's reappearance is changing everything._

"It was the only hotel that was still open with the Joker around and would take cash. I'll move to another location after tonight." Pam's voice was low, still as on edge as it had been at the park. She didn't walk, she prowled, catlike, balancing on the balls of her feet. She'd stuck both of her hands in the pockets of a long coat that seemed out of place in the summer warmth. Andi had thought that, given her harried look and the way she had sounded on the phone, Pam's usual energy had been ground down by the stress, but that wasn't it at all. Rather, it had been converted into a nervous tension, like that of a hunted animal. When they came to an intersection, Pam's gaze skittered either direction and then behind them before she ushered Andi to the left.

The door Pam stopped at was small, not all that different from any of the others. Andi was a bit surprised that she didn't have one on a higher floor, but with Pam's newfound paranoia, perhaps she thought the ground was the safest place.

She turned to Pam, expecting her to pull out the card key, and nearly jumped out of her skin in surprise. Pam had finally taken a hand from her one of her pockets and was holding a Sig, cocked, aimed straight at the door. She motioned impatiently for Andi to be silent, glanced from side to side again, then swiftly pushed inside, gun at the ready.

There was no one in there. Andi stood just inside the doorway while Pam searched quickly and thoroughly—under the musty bed, the cracked bathtub, the little closet with its broken ironing board—then crossed behind Andi to deadbolt the door and tossed the gun on the bed with a shaky laugh.

"I'm sorry. You must be thinking I'm crazy doing all this."

Andi sidestepped the question. "Where'd you get the weapon?"

"Swiped it off one of the marshals when I made a break for it." Pam grimaced. "I'd been watching them closely. One… I'm almost positive he was dirty. I caught him talking on the phone to a 'boss,' only I stole his phone and looked at the calls he'd made around that time and none of them matched Gordon's numbers or the team leader's. And I couldn't stand it anymore, being cooped up like that, with all their tension. Or I could until—"

She took a deep breath and pulled what looked like a small vial of clear liquid from her pocket and held it slowly up to the light. It didn't seem special to Andi, but she knew from experience that many of the most vital chemicals in science and medicine looked distinctly unimpressive.

"One of the… the requirements I had for going into protective custody was that I still be allowed to continue my research." Pam said slowly, rotating the vial in her fingertips. "That mushroom we found all those weeks ago was just too promising to ignore. And I managed to isolate that protein in it. The one that stops most poisons. This serum contains it."

"Really? Pam that's amazing!" Andi stood up and held out her hand. Pam barely hesitated before she placed it in Andi's palm. She turned it over carefully. This was what Pam had been working towards, nearly obsessed with, for years. And somehow, with her whole world going to hell, she had still managed to pull it off. Andi's unspoken compliment died on her lips, though, when Pam sank onto the bed, her face in her hands.

"Pam? Pam what's the matter?"

"They're going to kill it Andi." Her voice was a whisper, muffled by her hands. It was nearly impossible to understand her.

"What? What are they killing?" Andi carefully set the serum on the bedside table and knelt in front of Pam, tilting her head a bit to help her pick out her friend's words.

"The mushroom. It's an endangered species. The only real habitat it has left is that park and _they're building over it next week._"

"But—but—regulations. Law. They can't legally destroy an endangered…" Andi's brain caught up with her mouth. This was _Gotham_ they were talking about. Justice only kept her blindfold on until she heard coins clinking. Andi tried a different tack. "But if you just tell people about the discovery you could make a big enough stink about the issue that they'd have to at least delay construction. Let you gather more or move it to a new habitat or something. You know enough people in the environmental movements to pull it off."

"Sure. If I didn't have a murdering maniac on my heels, that would probably work wonderfully." Pam's voice was bitter. "But until he's behind bars again, me and my discovery have to stay under wraps."

Andi sat down next to her friend. "Why did finding this mean you had to run from the police?" she asked slowly. "You have some sort of plan don't you?"

"Not really," Pam confessed, "Just… ideas really. They—Andi I've never felt hate like this. These people, they're building over things and they don't give a damn who lives or dies because of it. And I've been so helpless lately. Leena and the Joker, and now _this_. I can't just keep letting things pass without fighting anymore."

"Pam… you're not considering doing anything… rash are you?"

"Oh yes I am. I want to be rash and I want to hurt these bastards and I want to look in their eyes while I do it. They have no right, _no right_ to do this." Her voice rose on the last words and she finally lifted her face from her hands. Her green eyes were glowing with rage and unshed tears.

Andi abruptly wondered how stable Pam was right then. She knew her friend had been under stress, but this fury wasn't beyond anything Andi had seen before. Her temper was usually like sheet lightning: hot and furious, but over in an instant. But with first Leena and now this… Pam had had enough. The lightning had struck tinder-dry forest and she was on the verge of blazing out of control.

_How would Leena handle this?_ Leena had always been the peacemaker of the three, probably why Pam always looked up to her. Calm, sweet, and sympathetic. That was what she needed to be. Andi took a deep breath.

"It's tough isn't it? Feeling that. Knowing you need to do something, but worried about doing the wrong thing in response or going too far or—"

"I DON'T CARE ABOUT HOW FAR I GO!" Pam took several deep breaths, her hands clenching and unclenching wildly. She stood up and paced around the room the way a caged animal would. "Don't you see Andi? I've been held back, _limited_ by what others think is right and wrong. And now, because of these stupid laws that only apply to people too honorable to disobey them, people are going to die! Is that right Andi? Can I just sit by when I could stop more people from dying like Ivy did? Just because I'm worried that other people might think it's wrong?

"I hate them Andi! I want them to hurt for this! They _deserve _to be hurt with what they're doing! Can't you understand? We blame the Joker and all those other people for destroying us, and then we set up a system where all the rule makers are _doing the same damn thing!_"

"You can't mean that Pam. You can't."

"Why not? It's the truth; I've seen it for years now, seen how protests and hope are smothered to keep the status quo, but I've held my peace, figured it wasn't for me to question. Well I'm _done_ with that! If the law won't bring them to justice, I will."

"So—so what? You're just going to start sneaking around being a vigilante, killing off everyone who disagrees with you?" Andi asked desperately. _One_ vigilante was bad enough. "Pam, you need to calm down, think things through. What you're suggesting? It's _wrong_, Pam. And you know it."

Pam stared at her and then her gaze started to snap. "You don't understand Andi. I thought _you_ of all people would understand."

"What—Pam, no! I agree that something needs to be done, I just don't think that the way you're thinking of—"

"_You're_ trying to go all high and mighty on _me?"_

"What do you mean?"

"At least I'm _doing_ something, Andi! At least I haven't gone and abandoned the people who needed me!"

Andi stared at Pam, shocked at the hurt and anger in her glare as much as the accusation. Pam had been mad before, of course, but Andi had only seen this level of intensity a few times before. And it was the first time Andi could remember any sort of real anger from Pam being directed at _her._

"This isn't just about me disagreeing with you, is it Pam? You're…" Andi hesitated. "Have I done something wrong? Besides the argument right now?"

"Where have you been Andi?" Pam's voice was low and steady, but Andi could hear the raging currents underneath the ice. As angry as Pam was about her discovery and Leena's kidnapping, the fury hidden in her voice now was easily as deep-seeded as either one. "You said you were working on tracking Leena. But I've tried to find you through the cops and gotten nothing. You haven't been working with the police at all have you? And now you 'can't' help me? Can't or won't? What are you doing that's so important instead? I need you, _Leena_ needs you, and you can't be here for us? _What the hell are you doing?"_

Andi opened her mouth, the words rising in her throat. Her kidnapping, Bruce, her near murder spilled to the tip of her tongue, each fighting to get out first. All the pent up dangers and secrets, screaming for Leena, stitches in her back, marshals dead because of her stupid plans, the tracker on the Joker, Bruce pulling her from the water, Alfred and his gentle smile, running from the Manor, the Batman in her room, her first surgery, the cave and the Tumbler and bats on the radar.

And she couldn't say them.

She couldn't do it. Not even for her best friend who needed her help. She couldn't tell these secrets. They weren't hers, but she still had to keep them.

Had to sacrifice Pam for them.

"I—I… Pam, I can't say. I _can't_ Pam. It's not because I don't want to, it's that—"

"That's right. You can't. You know why? Because all you're doing is hiding aren't you? You've been running scared, Andi. You abandoned Leena and I, didn't care what happened to us as long as your own skin was safe—it's the only explanation for the lies."

"Pam, please listen to me. You can think I've done anything horrible, but believe me when I say that I have _never_—"

"Liar." Pam whispered. Andi froze. Something about her friend had changed, transformed from fury to… more. Right now, at this moment, Pam was deadly. "Run away then. If you can't help me or Leena, just get out."

"I _haven't_ aban—"

"GET OUT!"

Andi stood and backed slowly towards the door. _Danger_. The sense was as strong as it had been with Bruce those times. It had to be wrong, but her body, driven by pure survival instinct, obeyed. Her foot caught on something and she clutched at the wall to stay upright. When she looked up again, Pam had seized the gun lying on the bed and leveled it at her. Andi paused. No. Pam wouldn't go this far. She _wouldn't_. She made her eyes look into Pam's furious green gaze, ignoring the Sig. "Pam—"

"Leave now Andi," she snarled, "And don't you ever come back. Don't you _dare _come back."

Andi's senses slowed, as if she was moving through deep water, her attention locked on Pam. She meant it. She meant every word. Her groping hand seized on the door knob and she tumbled through, flat on her back. The broken eye contact made everything else speed up again and Pam slammed the door the moment she yanked her feet out. Andi pulled herself up, and ran blindly through the hallways, taking random twists and turns, dashing up and down flights of stairs, going wherever her mind labeled as 'away.' She didn't know where she was going, she didn't care.

She stumbled sprinting up a flight of stairs—it wasn't a hard fall, but Andi just couldn't find the will to get back up. Tears coursing down her face, she collapsed in on herself, knees curled to her chest, and let it all wash over her.

* * *

Bruce found her there. Minutes or hours later, Andi didn't know, but he was dressed in his bat suit and glaring at her, no doubt furious with her sneaking out. At the moment, Andi couldn't care less.

"What were you thinking?" he demanded, "You ran away without a word, Alfred's in a panic over you and I thought for a minute that… that… Andi are you _crying?_"

Andi didn't even bother wiping away the tears. It seemed so silly now. Faking strength. Holding the façade of a professional instead of a human being. What was the point of it all anyways?

"Andi? Andi what happened?"

"I lied to her." Andi's voice was still blank. She thought she was more stunned about that than Pam pulling the gun on her. "I—I abandoned her, Bruce. I forgot about her, left her to work through this on her own, and then when she needed me tonight… I couldn't help her. Again. I sacrificed my best friend to—to protect her, to protect Gotham and your identity. And now I've lost her as much as I have Leena. And it's all my fault."

Bruce was silent, but Andi could sense his anger leaching away.

"How do you do it?" she asked desperately, "How do you keep fighting day after day when there's nothing left to fight for? When it's all going to hell and you realize again and again that you're just one person? That you _can't _stop it no matter what you do? What possible reason could there be to keep going after all that?"

Bruce sighed. "Because… for all that, fighting and doing what one person can is still the right thing to do. And, for me, it's all I have left."

"And that's enough?" Andi whispered, "That's enough for you?"

He didn't answer.

Andi shot up, energy somehow bursting through the hopelessness, fueling the despair. "That can't be all, Bruce, it _can't!_ There's got to be more, some secret you're not telling me! What is it? How can you abandon the people you love and say that it's _right_? What are you? God? Some stupid legend? A superhero? A monster? Well I'm _not!_ I'm just a normal person, and I can't live like this, oh God, I can't—_I can't do this any more!"_ Her fingers dug into the sides of her head, fighting back the thoughts that tried to burst from her skull. She had to get out, had to lash out at something, had to—had to—

Bruce reached out, gripped Andi's arm just above the elbow. She stayed stiff for the briefest second, and then half collapsed onto his shoulder, sobbing.

"I'm sorry Andi. I'm so sorry. I swear, I never meant for this to happen. I shouldn't have pulled you into this. You should never have been involved. Never have had to deal with this. I'm so sorry." She felt his breathing catch slightly. "I know. Believe me, I know. It's not enough. It's never enough. And it never will be. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

Andi looked up from his shoulder and met his eyes. Empty. Lost. Broken. Like her. She drew in a ragged breath.

_He's the only person in Gotham who's as alone as I am._

She didn't choose. It was… inevitable. The same way dropping a ball made it fall to the ground. Or throwing a rock into a pond made the water ripple. A law of nature, bypassing free will altogether. Andi's feet stretched up on their own and then her lips were on his, desperate, seeking something, _anything_ to fill the void of loss and pain and loneliness that consumed her from the inside out.

His hands tightened around her back and his lips responded. Andi felt the slight loosening in his muscles, the barest give, a rush of hope, and then they tensed and he pulled away. "Andi…"

"Please Bruce," Andi closed her eyes. Was this what it came to? Begging? From _him? _"It doesn't have to mean anything. It doesn't. I just… I just need to pretend that for one minute there's someone else in the world who cares whether I live or die. Please."

He stayed still, but when Andi's lips met his again something in them quickened. One hand circled around to the back of her head, the other held her shoulders tightly, pulled her flat against his body armor. Andi cut loose to breathe, and it was Bruce's mouth that came to hers this time. His movements were gentle and hesitant where desperation had made her swift and sure, but Andi could sense the same longing, the same starvation to believe that there was someone, anyone, who still cared.

It didn't mean anything. It didn't. But right then, right there, the difference between reality and make believe blurred, and Andi would have sworn that she was whole.


	19. Fallen

**Chapter 19:** Fallen

"It's not like you're my boyfriend or anything. You don't have to walk me to my car," Andi mumbled. Bruce didn't answer and Andi shrugged uncomfortably. It had been a lame attempt at a joke anyways.

He led her through the labyrinth of hallways and staircases until they left the motel by the same door Andi had entered. Night had already fallen, but Andi had thought she might stay late and purposely left her car where she could get to it without passing in sight of either the streetlights or the road.

"Where did you park?" she asked absently as they crossed through the small lot.

Bruce pointed to the building in front of them. Squinting, Andi thought she could make out the shape of the Tumbler on top. "I didn't know why you'd disappeared, so I hurried," he explained.

"Oh." The silence between them stretched and stifled like a living thing. Andi scrabbled for another question before it could get too awkward. "How did you find me anyways?"

"I put a tracker on your car," Bruce said. Andi paused mid-step to stare at him and he quickly added, "before you left to stay with the Feds. I considered sending it with you when we first started planning the trap, and I never got around to disabling it once we decided not to go for that. Good thing, apparently."

"I see." Andi started walking again. Her voice was still flat, almost blank, but she kept talking anyways. It was better than thinking at least. "So how did you find me in the hotel?"

She heard the hesitation before Bruce matched her overly casual tone. Just a heartbeat too long before he answered. If Andi hadn't known him so well she would have missed it. "The only guest listed was Ivy Jensen. I told Alfred to get what he could on her while I looked for you. He found out that—"

"Ivy was the name of Pam's sister and Jensen was her mother's maiden name." Andi filled in. Her voice went from flat to just plain dead at the mention of her friend. So much for small talk.

They reached the car in silence and Andi pulled out her keys. "Well, um, thanks for walking me here."

She tried to walk towards her car door, but Bruce was square in the middle of her path and he didn't move. Andi tried again. "I'll… see you at the Manor then?"

"Andi…" Bruce's voice lost all its flippancy, "We need to talk."

She sighed. He must be thinking she was crazy or a coward, avoiding the topic like she was. "Yes we do," she agreed. "But… not here. Pam's close by, along with a whole street full of people, and I'd rather do this where we can't get interrupted."

"The Manor then?"

Andi nodded. "I'll see you there."

He still didn't move out of the way.

Andi folded her arms. "Do you need something?" Perhaps it was supposed to feel different, awkward, to argue with Bruce after all this. Strangely, though, it felt… reassuring. Despite everything trying to tear her apart, Andi was still strong enough to hold her own. That had to mean there was something left of her that hadn't been twisted and destroyed by all the craziness.

"I want to drive you home."

"What?" Of all the things Andi had expected, this wasn't it. "Why?"

"Because twenty minutes ago you were a crying wreck. You shouldn't be driving with the aftereffects of that." Bruce's tone was reasonable, but implacable. Andi tried to calculate her chances of getting past the Batman and decided that they weren't good enough to risk it. Besides, he had a point.

She climbed into the passenger seat without arguing and after a minute Bruce tapped on the window. "Pop the trunk open?"

Andi's forehead crinkled, but she did as she was asked. She heard him shove several heavy things inside, and when he finally joined her in the car he was dressed as Bruce Wayne again rather than the Batman.

"What—"

"The security guards wouldn't really know what to think if they saw the Batman driving through the Palisades would they?"

Andi felt her lips pull back. Was she actually smiling? "I suppose not."

Bruce turned the keys and then jumped as Andi's cheerful Tejano music started blaring again at full volume. She yelped and frantically punched it off.

He was staring at her, eyebrows raised. Andi felt a blush creep up her cheeks. "I… uh, I forgot I had that playing," she muttered.

He waited until he had pulled the car out into Gotham's late night traffic to pounce. "Selena Perez?" His voice was somewhere between teasing and mocking. "Really?"

"_You_ know _Selena?_"

Bruce's face was perfectly straight. "Alfred listens to her."

Andi stared at him for about three seconds, then burst out laughing. Bruce tried to keep his poker face, but finally had to grin too. "Alright, I'll admit, a Latina girlfriend of mine was mildly obsessed with her."

"You recognized the song within five seconds!"

"Alright, _very _obsessed then."

They managed to keep banter going through most of the drive, but Andi could feel the tension thrumming in the car, vibrating as much as a second engine. Despite the fact that she was dreading the coming conversation, Andi almost felt relieved as they pulled up to the Palisades. At least she could stop pretending and face up to the issue.

"Lay back. Pretend you're either asleep or drunk." Bruce said suddenly. Andi's jaw dropped.

"Excuse me?"

"The security guard," Bruce said impatiently, "There's only one reason 'Bruce Wayne' would be driving a woman's car home at night."

Andi snorted. "Two actually. And one of them is that the security guard has become convinced I'm blackmailing you on some sort of scandalous information."

_"What?"_

"Well, there had to be some reason for me to be staying at your house," Andi said, "So I convinced the rent-a-cop that I had dirt on you—drug trade was what I implied—and he decided that I must be blackmailing you and am here keeping an eye on you or something like that."

Bruce pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. "Of course you did."

They pulled through without a problem and Bruce parked the car in front of the Manor. They were both silent. Andi opened her mouth once or twice, but she shut it each time. She had been the one to kiss him. If he was going to be angry at her for it, it would be better to get it over with.

Only he didn't speak.

It was like a reverse suffocation. Andi could pull the air in, she just couldn't figure out a way to get it back _out_. Her breath kept catching on the words and feelings that she didn't want to admit to. It was no good. She had to exhale.

"What happened… I mean… back there… I didn't…"

Bruce turned towards her and Andi snapped her teeth together.

"Did you mean it?" he asked simply.

"I—" Andi paused. If there was ever a time to be rational, it was now. Almost clinically, she stepped back from herself, examined herself as meticulously as if her mind was the scene of a crime. Yes. Yes she had meant it. Had felt something. And there was that same something in his voice, in the way he watched her… intuitively, she knew that if she said 'yes,' he would respond in kind.

But.

But what would happen then? He would protect her. He would put her first. And that meant that she would be protected even if Leena and Pam, or maybe even Gotham itself, would suffer for it. Just like when he dove into the river after her when the Joker was still out there. He'd saved her when, rationally, he should have been focused on keeping track of the Joker. How much would she be willing to lose for him? How much could she ask him to give up? She already knew the answer.

"No," Andi heard herself say, "It was need, Bruce. Need and pain. That was all."

He didn't answer for a minute and Andi kept her face completely straight. She couldn't afford for him to see through her lies. Couldn't even afford to hope that he would.

"I understand. I just—" Bruce shook his head, obviously changed what he was going to say. "Andi, I do understand. Really. You needed me, and maybe I even needed you too a little bit. But what happened… it won't happen again. Not unless you mean it."

To her horror, Andi felt tears start to pool in her eyes. She couldn't break down. Not here, not now. Stupid, _stupid _hormones. She turned her head to one side so Bruce wouldn't see them.

"Thank you," she muttered, fumbling at the door handle, suddenly claustrophobic. She had to get out of here. She _hated _getting emotional!

"Andi…" She was already standing up, on the verge of slamming her door shut behind her, but Bruce's voice made her freeze. "If you ever do mean it… I'll be here."

"Thank you." Andi didn't know how she kept her voice so calm. It felt like there was a storm inside of her. "I should… I should go work on forensics."

Down in the caves Andi took several gulping breaths, hands on her knees as if she was about to be sick, until the unshed tears dried. Then, very calmly, she began to pull out forensic files, the tiny pieces of evidence, and let her work consume her the same way it had in that surgery, shutting out every emotion with unshakable rationality.

* * *

Something heavy and black shook Andi's shoulder, jerked her from the ferocious attention she was paying to the different dental records of the corpses at the nursing home.

"Bruce?" Andi simultaneously winced and tried to cover it. "What're you—Leena! Did they find her?"

"The hideout. Not the Joker or Leena, though. Gordon says he can give us until dawn to examine the lair before he'll have to call other people in. Are you ready to go?"

"Of course!" Andi jumped up and began pulling different items from the table. Plaster, several cameras with extra batteries and memory cards, gloves, notebooks, evidence bags… Bruce joined her and Andi started to shove the paraphernalia into his arms.

"You'll want things for examining bodies too."

Andi stared at him, panic electrifying her spine. "Not—"

"No, not your friend. Others." Clearly he either didn't know or was unwilling to say who. Not important as long as it wasn't Leena. Andi seized a portable fingerprint scanner and several thermometers, then scurried behind him to the car.

Bruce only paused to pile his share of the equipment on her lap, then started the car and sent them flying through the waterfall. For once Andi didn't care that he was speeding like a devil. Logically she had heard what he had said, that Leena wasn't there, that there was no sign of her. Logically. Her emotions, though, kept insisting that it was a lie. Leena had only been there a short time ago. Surely something about her friend would linger there if they could just reach the place fast enough. There would be some essence, some sign that she was alright.

_Stop this._ Andi ordered herself when she realized her breathing had already picked up with excitement. _You're a scientist. Rational and calm and collected. Get a grip!_ She started to pack the equipment into a heavy black backpack so that she wouldn't have to take several trips lugging it all in, then shoved it onto the dash and awkwardly tried to stay in her seat while pulling on the coveralls that were required at a crime scene. Despite what those idiots in _CSI: Miami_ did, there was simply no way you could walk around a crime scene dressed in Armani clothes, hair loose, tracking in dirt everywhere, and not contaminate everything in sight. And real forensic scientists couldn't afford Armani anyways.

Bruce pulled up in front of a long row of interconnected Costco-sized warehouses near the waterfront. The street seemed to be deserted except for Gordon, who stood right next to the doors, rubbing his upper arms as if cold and looking very uncomfortable.

His expression changed to one of relief the minute Andi stepped out. He tried to cover it by merely shaking her hand, but Andi could hear it in his voice. "Taylor! How are you? No injuries? Nothing—"

"I'm fine Commissioner." Compared to how Gordon seemed to be doing it was probably almost the truth. He always looked harried, but now his face was almost sagging with exhaustion and worry. Losing so many of his men and then having only tattered and often injured remnants to quell the worst riots Gotham had seen in years had taken quite a toll on him. Andi was going through enough trying to save two people from the Joker; she could only imagine what trying to save the entire city did to him.

Bruce joined them, stepping straight from a shadow that Andi would have sworn was empty. Both she and Gordon jumped. "Let's go."

Gordon nodded. "It's the warehouse behind me. I'm staying outside in case back up comes. Is there anything I can do from here?"

Andi tossed him a camera. "External shots of the building would be useful. Establishing shots, and then midrange ones placing the doors and such. Any signs of cars parked nearby so we can figure out what he used to leave, scuff marks of stuff being dragged in the doors—"

"Got it. I'll call you if I get anything worthwhile."

Bruce turned to head in but Andi grabbed his arm. "This is a little different from an exploded building," she told him. "For one thing, we're probably going to enter through the same exit the Joker used to leave. We can't risk destroying any traces when we walk over his path though, which means we'll have to step carefully. I should probably go in there first, with you following."

Gordon lowered the camera and gave her a flat look, but Andi ignored him and watched Bruce. Even though all she could really see of his face was his mouth and the faint glitter of his eyes, she didn't think he was thrilled with the idea either. "You promised. Leena and Pam get put first. Even if it means I'm in danger."

Very slowly, he stepped out of the way. Gordon divided his glare between the two of them. "You're just going to let her walk in there unarmed?"

"I thought you said the building was empty," Andi pointed out.

Gordon sighed so heavily that his mustache blew out slightly, but he didn't protest as Andi ducked beneath the pulled up door. The thing was massive, presumably built so different trucks and such could come in and out, but the search team had opened it to waist height only. She could only hope the discoverer had been smart enough to wear gloves and would keep their mouth shut.

"Make sure you've put on foot covers," she ordered Bruce. She had given up on trying to make him wear the proper white zip-up coveralls after touring the first two explosion sites—his armor did a decent job of keeping him from contaminating the scene anyways—but he had at least agreed to that much. "And can you pass me a flashlight and UV lamp?" The whole room was pitch dark and Andi had no idea where the light switches were. Even if she did, she would need to examine them both for traces and, with the Joker involved, any sort of sabotage. Even the smallest crime scenes took hours to analyze properly. One this size would normally take nearly an entire day with a full two teams going nonstop. And that was if they were rushing things. She had only Bruce and could only stay for another four hours. They would have to cut corners, much as Andi hated it.

He pressed a sturdy flashlight into her gloved hand and Andi flicked it on, carefully sweeping the ground in front of her for anything she could run into or step on. The whole thing was bare, unstained concrete. She pushed the orange glasses on and checked with both lights for a clear path. "Alright. Follow only in my footsteps. And don't touch anything." It was an effort to keep her voice brisk rather than a whisper. She could feel the wide, dark space stretching out around her like a field of nightmares. The Joker could be here, preparing to jump out at her. _Anything_ could be in there, just waiting for her to walk in on it. _I asked to go first,_ Andi reminded herself and carefully stepped forward.

Bruce followed her inside, his steps barely audible, and Andi beamed the light around. The warehouse was huge and even the strong flashlight barely reached the other end. But the first thing she was looking for—the bodies—were square in the middle of the building. Andi made a quick count. Six people. Six. That would mean there was one person from every attack except for Leena and one other… why had no hostage been taken for that one? Perhaps there was and he or she was still alive somehow. Or perhaps their body was simply somewhere else. No telling, at least not until she had done the analyses.

She took a circuitous route to the group, Bruce close on her heels. Assuming that the Joker had left right after the slaughter, he would most likely have taken the direct route out—a straight line from bodies to the door. Stepping on that trail might disrupt a trace.

"Photos first," Andi decided. "I'll take the pictures and you see if you can identify anyone without actually moving or touching the bodies. Then we'll examine the corpses themselves and, if we have time, move out in a spiral search."

Properly, the photos alone ought to have taken a couple of hours at the least in a room this big, but the equipment was good and Andi moved fast. She was midway through the establishing shots when her flashlight caught on something. Blood. Lots of it splashed around, along with a large puddle congealed into a vaguely human form. Victim was dead if this was all from one person, and they'd been left long enough for most of the blood to finish drying before slight sweep marks indicated that he or she had been dragged away. Andi crouched lower, camera snapping away, and her eyes caught on a single golden hair curling in the middle of where the head had lain.

She heard Bruce drop something behind her as she shrieked, rooted to the spot by horror and sheer panic. Her scream choked off as he grabbed her by the shoulders.

"What—"

"Blond hair—dead person—"

Andi forced herself back to coherency. Bruce would pull her out of here if she went into hysterics. She pulled loose from him and slowly leaned in to study the hair and the blood patterns. Even she was surprised by how calm her voice was. "Someone died here. Blond hair, probably female given the length. I think it might be…" She pulled out a small pair of forceps and carefully removed the hair, staring at it. Suddenly her stiffened muscles sagged in relief. "No," she managed, "No, it's not. Leena's hair is shorter. And going by the blood patterns this woman was taller than—than Leena. It just looked like it could be her for a second." She made herself stand straight again.

"We need to keep working. There's not much time."

"Yes. Yes of course." Andi's voice was still distant, mechanical almost, but she managed to turn away from the corpse to look at Bruce's shadowy figure. "Have you identified anyone yet?"

"Some. A man from Dr. Isley's lab, Alan Holdgrove. And John Martin, the missing old man from the nursing home."

Andi nodded. "Any others?"

"Not yet," Bruce took a deep breath, "But one of them is a child."

Andi's shuddered and felt her stomach clench all over again. _Can't get sick at the crime scene, can't get sick here_. Whatever the TV shows might depict about tough-as-nails police teams who took eviscerations and serial killings in stride, real life forensic scientists were entirely human. She already knew that she'd have nightmares about this place for months, especially if there was a dead kid.

"If you've identified as many as you can without touching them, pictures of the bodies would be best," Andi made herself take a deep breath. "Just make sure—"

"I don't touch anything. Got it." Bruce took a camera from her bag and started back towards the corpses. Andi's mind somehow restarted at the sight of them. Work to do. If she was ever going to save Leena from the same fate, she had to get back to work.

"Also, measure, sketch, and photograph all the bloodstains," she called after him. "Especially shots that show how they splashed. Then swab them for analysis and identification. With labels of where each came from!"

She found dried blood spatters in the back corner of the room that she had to analyze herself, as well as the place where the dead woman had been. By the time she had done all that and finished the larger shots it had been just over an hour.

"Are you done?" she asked quietly, coming up to Bruce. He nodded slowly.

"Let's see what we can learn."

Andi was no pathologist, but med school had taught her some things about corpses, and forensics had allowed her to pick up on other information. She bent over the first in the group—the scientist, Alan Holdgrove, Bruce whispered to her—and studied him. There was a single stab mark into his chest, whose angle and depth made her think that the blade had slid perfectly into the heart. A quick death. That much she could be grateful for at least. She carefully tried to flex the fingers. No give. Careful exploration of his other joints showed Andi that he was completely stiff.

"Alan Holdgrove. White male, aged forty-three. Rigor mortis suggests that time of death was well over twelve hours ago. Less than twenty-four," Andi whispered into a handheld voice recorder. "Have to get Gordon to give information from a coroner on when mortis starts to relax if we're going to learn more. This place doesn't have air conditioning, and with the heat that must have surrounded him all day, the rate at which his temperature would have dropped varies too much from the standard falling rate for me to ascertain time of death by measuring his current temperature. It's taken anyways, and I should be able to figure it out if I analyze it later at the lab." She turned to examine his fingers again and added, "He's got defensive wounds and the marks of a severe beating across his face and what can be seen of his body that were nevertheless already showing signs of healing. I'd estimate both are from when he got kidnapped or close to that time. No indications of whether they occurred concurrently or not. Slight burns too, probably from the explosion. No other recent injury marks are visible, though, so I am confident in identifying the single puncture wound to the chest as cause of death. Later checking of the autopsy will verify."

Bruce moved in to take shots of the half-closed scrapes on his knuckles and Andi carefully left Holdgrove's body for the next. The child. Andi had to swallow back nausea. _Just imagine it's a doll_. "Alright, fingerprint scans label this victim as Rudy Green, a thirteen year old African American boy who had been reported missing when the Joker blew up a playground. Like Holdgrove, there's a stab wound that slips through the ribs to his heart and time of death looks to be in the same twelve hour window. No obvious defensive wounds, but… he seems to have had a disjointed right arm or bad sprain. It's been set, but there's heavy bruising and the arm is in a sling formed from what looks like the remains of a lab coat, probably from Holdgrove." She switched off the voice recorder, carefully removed and bagged the coat, snapping pictures as she did, and examined the break itself. It was nearly a quarter of an hour since she had started before she moved to the next. They needed to hurry if they were going to be able to give even a passing search for forensic evidence besides the bodies.

"John Martin, a 72 year old white male missing from the veterans' nursing home is the next. Same probable cause of death—single stab to the chest—as Holdgrove and Green, and looks to be approximately the same time of death. No visible injuries otherwise...

"Victim identified as Oliver Saints according to missing persons list. White male, thirty-two. No bruises or signs of abuse. Same mode of death, same time. He's—according to records, he had severe Trisomy 21. Down's Syndrome." Andi's mouth twisted. Oliver's eyes were still open. Unlike the other bodies, with their blank stares, his somehow still held fear and horror. _What sort of sick monster could _do_ this? A child? An old man? A mentally ill person? That bastard _will_ pay._ She made herself keep moving.

The next corpse was worse. Andi had to take several deep breaths before she could start on the recording.

"Middle aged man without—without matches on the fingerprint scanner or missing persons. Judging by the dirt on his clothes and body he was homeless, probably taken from the attack on North City Park. Time of death is approximately the same as the others, but the method…" _Running out of time. Need to say it._ "…Numerous slashes through the gut, across the chest, throat, and face, including a Chelsea grin similar to the Joker's scars. Measurements and further examination by autopsy and forensics will determine if it is the same knife as the one that killed the others, if the height and angles indicate the same attacker, and exactly which wound killed him. At a guess it was one of the throat slashes. Traces of white powder on fingers suggest that he was on drugs, including possibly at the time of death." She quickly swabbed some of the crystals and took a small blood sample, then went on.

The last body in the group. There was still that woman whose body was missing too, but Andi suspected that she had been killed at a different time… there was a large space between her and this group, and from the blood splashing she had been laid out on her back rather than falling down as these others had done. It was as if the circumstances were totally different from whatever drama had gone on here yesterday, leaving yet another mystery to solve. So much that still needed doing. Looking for hair, looking for DNA on anything that might have been touched, blood samples from all the victims not just their homeless man. They hadn't even started to search those other rooms leading off of the warehouse, although as long as there weren't bodies inside, Gordon could probably keep those cordoned off until tomorrow night.

This corpse had fallen facedown and was nearly rock hard stiff. Andi needed Bruce's help to turn him over and then gasped in recognition.

Bailey.

So he _had_ been kidnapped. And… slashes across his whole body and face. His intestines were poking out from one, like bits of blue snake, and there was a huge pool of dried blood underneath him. He had died as painfully as the homeless man. Unthinkingly, Andi reached for Bruce and clenched his hand hard in hers.

"Do you need for me to do this one?"

Andi just nodded. _His son's wife was about to have his first grandchild_, she remembered. Funny, the things that came to mind in cases like this. _A girl. He was going to retire once she was born._ The smile cut into his face seemed like a horrible mockery of the grin he hadn't been able to pull off his face the day he announced it no matter how hard he tried.

"Sergeant Paul Bailey, white male aged fifty-seven. Killed with the same methods as the unidentified homeless man—"

"Wait." Andi stared hard at the slashes, analysis somehow breaking past the numbness. "No he wasn't."

"What do you mean?" He clicked off the machine and stared at her.

"Look." Andi moved back to the homeless man and held the flashlight as if it was the knife, moving it gently an inch above his wounds. Her hands were shaking no matter what she did, but she tried to ignore them. "Alright, say this man was standing up when he was killed. It's the most likely scenario with the wound pattern. My hand would have traced like this… here… here… and so on. Right?"

"Of course."

"But… for Bailey… look." Andi returned to his body and tried to trace the cuts the same way she had done with the other man. "The slashes go in at different angles. And they're really awkward for me to make. Using my right hand. If I used my left hand, however—" she switched the hand holding the flashlight, "I could make the cuts. Easily."

"So… there were different culprits?"

"Yes. A righty and a lefty. And…" she glanced back at the other bodies, "I didn't think about it before, but judging by the angle the knife went in, I think it was the lefty who killed the others. The righty only killed the unidentified victim."

They were silent for about thirty seconds. Andi tried to think of another possible attacker, a suspect who wasn't the one her intuition suggested. The idea gathered strength in her, though, like a bolder gaining momentum as it rolled further and further down a hill.

"Which hand does the Joker use?" she finally asked in a small voice.

"The right," Bruce whispered.

"Oh no. No." It was as if water had turned dry, as if the sun gave off darkness suddenly. No. It couldn't be true. It _couldn't_. She would believe in a quadriplegic doing backflips and cigarettes helping the lungs before she believed this. Her traitor mouth whispered the words, however.

"Leena's left handed."

Silence.

"Oh God. Please no." Her whole body was shaking, the words barely breathed. "No. Please. Oh Leena, what have you _done?_"


	20. End Game

**Author's Note: **STOP! This is the first ever Irish double-post, so if you haven't read Chapter 19 yet, make sure to read it first!

For those of you still here, two quick notes. First of all, this is a Leena chapter, and it is probably the closest this story will come to an M rating (in fact, part of me thinks that it should be that). Violence and strong language do happen in this chapter, so if that's not your cup of tea, please skip over this one.

Now for the other issue. See, I decided to post these two chapters together because they really do belong as a set, at least in my mind. That being said, my vanity as an author means I still really really want reviews for both. What can I say? I'm shallow. But you get to benefit out of it. Recently a new story idea has shoved its way into my head and is now competing with _Unmasked_ for brain space. It wants to get told, and I tend not to argue with characters who know how to kill people, so here's the deal. If any of y'all are interested in reading that, review both chapters and I'll send you the first chapter I have written in _Legacy_, a _Hunger Games_ fic with this rough summary:

"After being crowned victor of her Games, Liv Caldwell believes nothing worse can happen to her than the Arena. But when she makes the mistake of refusing an offer from President Snow, she realizes that her own Games were easy in comparison to the one that lies ahead."

Of course if you want to review both chapters because you're nice like that, that's cool too! To be 100% honest, I've NEVER been this nervous about a chapter, not even the kiss one, so whether you love it, hate it, or are somewhere in between, I'm going to break down and beg for you to hit me with it, because this one _has_ to be right.

* * *

**Chapter 20:** End Game

EIGHTEEN HOURS EARLIER

Something had changed. Leena could feel it in the pit of her bones, with the pure instinct life with Jay had instilled in her. Even the others seemed to know it to some degree. Most of them did. Funny which ones. Bailey, of course, with his years working as a cop, knew it. So did the child, the old man, and the one Leena suspected had mental problems. Holdgrove, though, and the man Jay had dragged in about an hour ago seemed oblivious. Holdgrove had gone back to sleep. The other was muttering to himself, rocking back and forth incessantly. It had to be well past midnight, yet somehow the tension thrummed through the group, now huddled towards the center of the room, well away from her corner. They stared at the door. Silent. Waiting.

Jay had come in at night. That was a first. He'd always waited at least until the early morning to arrive. And then he'd left again rather than going to that room of his. Of course, he did things randomly—the times he gave food, the varying abuse he heaped on them, what he made Leena do—but this was different somehow. Leena knew it the same way she knew the concrete floor was beneath her. Something had changed, and where Jay was concerned, change was never good. Leena was exhausted, physically and mentally, yet she was now anything but calm. She stared at the door. Silent. Waiting.

And then, hours after he had left, the door creaked open again. He held a flashlight in one hand, and swung it around, first at the group, then at Leena. The others kicked Holdgrove awake, and slowly stood. Leena kept still. Even after all this time, the natural instinct that if you stayed still you wouldn't be seen took over, left her paralyzed.

Which, of course, was enough to make Jay walk straight up to her.

He shone the light straight into her eyes, then put it under his face, the way campers did when telling scary stories. Leena caught her breath. He had finally reapplied face paint, but now a whole chunk of not just paint but _flesh_ had been torn away in what looked suspiciously like a bite. Despite all that he had done, it caused the same instinctive sense of sympathetic pain any injury did.

"What happened Jay?"

He cocked his head. "Aw, this? Your friend Taylor got hungry."

"Andi? Jay what happened? Where is she?" Leena scrambled up, panic breaking through her weary lethargy. Jay had tortured her, tortured strangers, but until now Pam and Andi had at least been safe. There had been that. "WHERE IS SHE JAY?"

He gave an elaborate shrug. "I don't care." It was a mark of how desperate Leena was that she considered screaming at him again. He spoke before she could. "But she _wasss_ quite a nuisance. We're gonna have to clean house sooner than I wanted."

Leena paused. "What do you mean?"

"What I said of course." Jay rolled his eyes. "Don't worry li'l Harley, you're coming with me. But these others they've, uh, gotta go."

He carefully set down the flashlight next to her, flicked on the light switch installed in the back of the corner and started to hum. Slowly, lovingly, he pulled out one of his knives, tapped it against his palm. She stared at it with horror.

"Oh, don't worry. It's not for _you_. I'm not even gonna make you participate in tonight's, uh, per-for-_mance_. All you gotta do is sit back and watch the show." He grinned and fluttered one hand at her, telling her to move back against the wall. He didn't look to see if she obeyed, just turned away and approached the others in their group.

They weren't idiots. They saw Jay approaching, heard the way his breathing picked up with excitement. Bailey, at least, probably saw the light glinting off his blade from the moment he'd drawn it. Most of them backed up, Bailey pulling the kid behind him, Holdgrove helping the elderly man. The only one who stayed down was the man brought in earlier. He seemed oblivious, still just rocking. Leena wondered if he was drugged or had been hit in the head or something. The room was dead silent except for his mutters.

Leena knew what was coming. So did the others. That didn't stop her from shrieking in surprise when Jay darted in, jerked the still-oblivious man upright, and dragged him away from the group. Bailey looked ready to interfere, but before he could Jay had backed away with his prize, far enough that he would have time to prepare if he was charged. The kid grabbed onto Bailey, clearly pleading for him to stay. After a minute he nodded and backed down, leaving Jay alone with his new victim.

"You wanna know how I got these scars?"

Leena flinched, covered her ears as the man finally snapped out of his haze and screamed, screamed like the woman had before, screamed_ harder. _She couldn't block it out, finally opened her eyes and saw Jay slashing at him, through the throat, lips, and body. She didn't know which was worse. The screams that broke through to her no matter what she could do, or when they finally stopped as Jay's knife made a particular brutal slash to the throat. Jay gave the body a few more jerks with the knife, let it drop to the ground.

He turned to the others.

She had to stop it. Hiding wouldn't make it go away. Running, cowering, covering her ears, shutting her eyes, wouldn't end it. Leena didn't know what she was doing, but suddenly she was up, sprinting to Jay. "Wait!"

He turned. Leena saw the glint in his eye and she knew. She _knew. _ Pleading for them would only end with it being worse, more drawn out and painful. What else could she do? What else?

"Let me do it."

Silence. Even Jay looked startled for the barest second. Then he chuckled, grin widening, and flipped the knife so that the handle was held to her. Leena stared at it. The handle was drenched in blood except for five small bare patches where his fingers and thumb had gripped. Her hand extended towards it, then stopped an inch short, shaking badly.

"You wanna do it or not Harley-Quinn?"

Bailey. The child. An old man. Holdgrove. A mentally ill man whose name she didn't even know. _I'm doing it for them_. Her muscles tensed, as if fighting her brain's orders, but she somehow took the blade into her own hand. She was crying. Bitter, broken, _useless_ tears that would help no one. Leena stared at Jay hopelessly. There was no mercy in his eyes, just warm, wicked amusement. He motioned to the others and slowly Leena turned.

Holdgrove looked ready to jump at her, ready to attack, but Jay pulled out a gun. "Anyone wants me to do it instead, just say the word." She heard him lick his lips and could imagine the smile he gave them as he said it. Holdgrove went still. She could feel his glare burning into her, but even that was just the faintest echo of her own loathing right now.

She stared at them blankly, studying them. Holdgrove clearly hated her, and the kid was trying to be brave but giving himself away by biting his bottom lip. The old man stood very straight. She thought he might be a war veteran, the way he kept his chin up, the disdain and pride in his face. The mentally challenged person looked confused but very, _very_ scared. His eyes kept darting to the dead body and he was crying silently. Bailey… she couldn't look at Bailey.

Jay started to hum behind her. "Hurry up, kid."

No. She couldn't. Not this. _Not this_. What choice did she have? _Not this!_ Her legs took a shaking step forward. Toward the child. He should suffer the least. He shouldn't have to watch as the others died, as she slowly worked her way through a pile of corpses to him.

Bailey had improvised a sling for his arm. Good of him. Leena tried to keep herself detached, tried not to look, but the kid's heavy breathing caught her attention. She was the one who was going to end that. _She_ was.

_Oh God,_ _please! Anything, anything you want but NOT THIS!_

"It's—it's ok," she tried to whisper. Somehow her traitor eyes found his, saw the sparks of defiance struggling with the fear. She carefully put her right hand on his shoulder, whether to calm him or steady herself she didn't know. It didn't accomplish either one. She tried to imagine she was doing surgery. Maybe she was. It was an act of mercy, an act to spare him pain. Wasn't that what being a doctor was all about?

In books and movies, a knife always seemed to slide right into a person without a pause. Maybe Leena was too hesitant, or the knife was wrong, or the stories had just plain lied, but it wasn't like that for her. She had to move slowly, precisely, line the blade up so that it would avoid glancing off his ribs, angle it to go straight for the heart. She felt him tense as the tip edged against his skin, and with a sudden panicked strength she shoved it into his chest as deep as it would go.

Blood poured out, warm, sticky, sealed her palm to the hilt. Her hand jerked away, knife clutched reflexively in her fingers. Her other hand, still gripping his shoulder, felt the exact moment when the tension dissolved from his body.

She couldn't breathe. She was choking. The kid slid down to the floor, and she didn't know why she didn't go with him. She just watched the corpse numbly, as if expecting him to move. His eyes weren't focused on her anymore. They weren't focused on anything. Of course not. She had killed him. It was as simple as that. She was a murderer. Somehow Leena made herself look away from him and stand, turned to the next person.

Holdgrove. She stood in front of him, and the minute she got close enough he lashed out, seized her throat and tightened his grip. She was too stunned to pull away. Didn't think she wanted to. _What have I done? Why?_ "Touch me once with that blade you little bitch—"

Jay cocked the gun and he froze. She wanted to wait, wanted but couldn't. His arms were up, an open target and she was desperate for air, for it to be over. The blade punched straight through the ribs and the grip on her throat loosened. Medically, she knew he was practically dead. So maybe she imagined that he was still staring hate at her as he fell to his knees, then straight forward. She barely stumbled out of the way in time, let go of the knife as she did. She stared at it blankly. She couldn't touch his body. _Couldn't_. That sense of hatred, of absolute _loathing_ still emanated from him like a foul odor.

"Jay?" she whispered, gesturing to the blade. He smiled, walked up to her, and obligingly pulled it out. Holdgrove's body jerked a bit, then went horribly still as more blood rushed free.

"Here ya go Harley. C'mon and hurry it up now."

She gulped. Something in her teetered. She hovered between hysteria and despair. _Nothing's right. I'm murdering people as an act of mercy. Nothing's right anymore._

_ No. That's not true. Jay's right. I think he was right all along._

The admission released a sort of adrenaline. It tingled through her fingers, warmed her body so that her injuries seemed like nothing, released her tightened breathing to hoarse ragged gulps for air. She spun and barely paused to find the proper place to stab straight into the old man's heart, watched the unflinching steel in his eyes dissipate. Nothing to fear from him. It was fast, faster than any she had done before. Somehow she found a smile on her face. A stress reaction? The irony of it? She was getting better at this either way. Could make a career out of it.

A giggle burst past her lips at the thought, as if squeezed from between her ribs. She stifled it quickly, but another burst past as she saw the terrified expression on the retarded man's face. Retarded. She'd never called anyone that before, but why not? Why be so politically correct? She was _fucking killing the man!_ And he looked _comical_ gaping at her like that, speech forgotten in his panic, resorting to animaline grunts stifled by his thick tongue. He tried to pull away but she grabbed him by the arm and, with a burst of furious energy, pushed him against the wall. The blade-work was easy now. In and out. He slid to the ground and she flicked the knife free, flitted over to the last person—

And found herself face to face with Bailey. She stared at him, her rapid, shallow breaths calming under his steady gaze. It took her a moment to recognize the emotions on his face. So different from her frenzy.

He wasn't angry. He wasn't horrified or even afraid. He just looked… sad. She couldn't fathom why. He didn't flinch as she drew close to him, as if about to embrace him, teasingly traced the knife along his lips and cheeks, a pattern that would match Jay's scars if she pressed the tiniest bit harder. A smile played on her own lips, but her sight was all blurry and her cheeks were wet for some reason. She was on a cliff edge, she was already falling, and he was holding out his hand. A last chance.

"It's alright Leena," he said soberly. "It's alright. I understand."

Harley burst out laughing as she gripped the knife tighter and tore him apart.

He just didn't get the joke.

**END OF PART II**


	21. Tricks and Traps

**Part III**

**Chapter 21:** Tricks and Traps

Andi just sat, numb, her mind repeating the same two thoughts over and over, like a badly scratched CD. There was no way it was true. This couldn't be real. This couldn't be true. It couldn't be real.

She kept staring at the bodies, twisted around like grotesque dolls. Andi wanted to look away, but something about their brokenness was mesmerizing, hypnotic almost. Leena. Leena had broken them like that. It couldn't be true. This wasn't real.

It was.

Bruce reached past her suddenly for something white and flat, laying right where Bailey's body had been. The distraction broke Andi from her daze as if a switch had been flicked. A message? Judging by its position and the lack of blood on it, the paper had probably been stuffed beneath Bailey's leg. That had to have been intentional with all the other blood around it. She tried to lean over Bruce's shoulder to read it, but he shifted away so that he was sitting across from her.

"What does it say?" Andi asked impatiently. With the flashlight shining through the paper, she could see red ink; she didn't want to know whose blood had been used for that. "Is it from Leena? The Joker? What—"

Bruce looked straight up at her for several seconds, and something firmed in his face as if he'd decided something. "The Joker left a message," he told her quietly, "I'm going to go find him. Here." He held out the note.

"What?" Leena. If they found the Joker they would find Leena. There would be a reasonable explanation, some miracle answer that would prove her friend's innocence. Forget stopping the Joker—all she wanted was her friend back. "Yeah, of course, let's go. Where is he?" She reached over for the paper and suddenly it was gone, slipped into his glove. That was the only warning she had.

Bruce seized her by the wrist and bowled into her, shoved her off balance, handled her as easily as he had the corpses. Andi flipped around, slammed backwards his chest plate. She struggled, tried to sit up, and he pushed her back into him with one arm. Something very much like fear spiked in her, quickly stifled by anger.

"Just what do you think—"

He wrapped the crook of his elbow around her neck, pressing hard on the arteries. Andi thrashed, stared up at his dark eyes in panic and utter disbelief. Her sight was blurring, pain shot up her head, one hand, still grasping the flashlight, twisted and pounded futilely on his leg, but nothing was working. Bruce—choking her—why—

"Sorry," she heard him mutter, a sharp tiny something poked into her neck, and everything went black.

* * *

Andi woke to a swaying, lulling motion, her head pounding and thrumming worse than it ever had from a hangover. She was laying down, but all folded up, legs and head both touching walls to either side, something soft beneath her and at her back. The back of a car. _I… fell asleep? Blacked out drunk? No… no Bruce… knocked me out. Again. He…_

She opened her eyes, wincing as that made her head throb more than ever, and found herself staring at the back of a brown, scruffy head of hair peeking over the headrest. "Gordon?" she muttered. The Commissioner looked up and Andi met his guilty glance in the rearview mirror. She groaned and laid her head back again. "Batman. He left without me."

It wasn't a question but her boss answered anyways.

"Yes. Put you in a blood choke, then drugged you to keep you asleep. He didn't want you interfering with him fighting the Joker. Told me to tell you that he would protect Dr. Quinzel if he found her."

Andi made herself sit up. Not dizzy. That was a plus. And she could think clearly despite the screaming protests her head sent out whenever she moved. There must have been something in the drug to allow that; from what she had seen of chokes, most people could barely remember their name on waking. "We should go back. Help him."

Gordon snorted. "Even if I could, I wouldn't take you to him. I'm not letting you get near that fight, Taylor, sorry. And I can't anyways; he took off as soon as he gave you to me. He could be anywhere now."

Andi let out something between a sigh and a moan and put her head in her hands. Her head _really_ ached. Bruce had done a good job trapping her, she had to admit. Gordon sure wouldn't let her go anywhere, and even if she evaded him, she had no clue where Batman had actually gone. Maybe this was his idea of revenge for all the times she'd tried to manipulate him. She cast around in her mind for some way out, but nothing came to mind except plans for afterwards, mainly involving the Tumbler and a good deal of hydrochloric acid. Satisfying, but not particularly helpful at the moment.

"Where are we going?" she asked instead.

"Home."

"Br—Batman's home?" Bruce had never cleared up exactly how much Gordon knew, but Andi hadn't thought he'd know where the cave would be.

"No. Mine."

"Oh." Andi considered it for a minute. "Your… your family won't mind?"

"We sent the kids to their aunt's in New York once the Joker blew up the police station. I can't convince Barbara to leave, but she won't have a problem with it. Not if I explain that you're working to stop the Joker." Gordon's voice hardened. "Or maybe she will mind. Enough that I can talk her into getting out of Gotham for a little while so she'll be safe."

Andi didn't know how long Bruce had knocked her out for, but it was only another five minutes before Gordon pulled up in front of a shabby but respectable townhouse. A light was still on in the living room and a woman with a worn face and close-cut, rust colored hair ran out in her bathrobe while the Commissioner was putting the car in park.

"Jim! Where have you been? Did you find him, why did it take so long to—who's this?" She finally spotted Andi as she carefully climbed from the police cruiser. Andi shifted uncomfortably under her stare and rapid-fire questions, but Gordon seemed unphased.

"Barbara, this is Andrea Taylor. She's a forensic scientist from MCU working with… our friend. They needed to examine evidence with the Joker and I couldn't call to warn you because of the usual reasons."

Her worried face softened. "Of course. Come on in Andrea. You look like you could use some coffee." Gordon perked up at that and she gave him a flat stare. "Jim, you need to sleep if you're going to be any good to Gotham right now."

Gordon grumbled, but either his wife ruled the roost too thoroughly for him to protest or he was as exhausted as he looked, because he pecked her on the cheek and headed up the stairs as soon as they got inside. Mrs. Gordon watched him go, shaking her head, before turning and leading Andi into a clean but out-of-date kitchen. "Sit down, please," she invited, pouring coffee for both of them into a set of chipped mugs. "Do you want sugar or creamer? Or are you hungry? I can make pancakes or toast or something."

"No. No thank you. Just coffee, and I don't need anything in it."

She smiled, stirring sugar into her own mug before joining Andi at the kitchen table. Andi gulped half of it down in two quick draughts—anything to ease the pressure and pounding from the inside of her skull. Mrs. Gordon shook her head at that. "Sometimes I wonder if the force requires that you drink it black before they'll let you join. I haven't met anyone on Gotham PD who's taken more than a creamer. Well, Ramirez did, but then look how she turned out."

Andi didn't know what Ramirez had done to deserve that—she'd been diagnosed with PTSD and honorably discharged six months ago—but something much more important was pressing on her mind. "Mrs. Gordon—"

"Please. Call me Barbara."

"Barbara. I don't know if Gordon told you but… well to be blunt the Joker's tried to kill me. Twice. And he hasn't cared who's gotten in the way. If you'd rather I stay somewhere else, I can—"

"You can stay here and drink your coffee." For not being Hispanic, Barbara suddenly sounded very much like Abuelita when Andi had tried to cross her. Her eyes seemed to pin Andi where she sat. "Jim couldn't make me leave when he sent the kids away and I'm not going to get scared off now."

She kept quiet and finished her drink, watching through the kitchen window as the darkness slowly retreated. Barbara eventually got up and refilled both of their mugs. "Tell me what you're thinking," she invited.

Andi snorted. "That if I had the slightest idea where Batman was, I could try to hotwire your husband's car and track him down. I'm just debating whether I'd try to bash the living daylights out of him for leaving me behind or help him get the Joker first."

"Ah. Well if that's your plan, you don't have to hotwire anything. There's a spare key on the hook by the front door," Barbara said innocently. Andi caught her eye and both of them grinned at the same time.

There was a creak in the floorboards and then Gordon walked in, on his cellphone. Barbara shot up.

"Jim you're supposed to be _asleep!_ What can be so important that—"

He held up a hand, still babbling away to whoever was on the other line. "Alright. Check up on the other members just in case and send them to a hospital no matter what they want. Then start looking into whether anything connects the ones who are already sick. There's got to be some common ground, something in their voting records or policies or who's bribing them that would trigger it. And I want an update from the hospital ready in fifteen minutes, including whether they think it could be a biological weapon. I'll be at Gotham General in twenty."

Gordon snapped the phone shut and Barbara didn't look like she wanted to protest any more. "What happened Jim?"

"We…" Gordon ran his hand through his already rumpled hair. "Well, we've got a bit of an emergency."

* * *

The second Gordon's cruiser vanished, Andi in tow, Bruce turned back to the warehouse. He felt bad for doing that. But as far as he could see, there hadn't been another choice. She wouldn't have let him go alone, not while her friend was in danger, and he couldn't risk her. He just hoped she wouldn't figure out how close he was going to stay to the warehouse. If she managed to convince Gordon to turn back…

Bruce shook his head. He couldn't think of that right now. Gordon had no way of knowing where he was going. Andi wouldn't either. Concentrate on the now. He pulled the note from his hand and read the shaky scrawl again.

_Warehouse on the far left. Enjoy yourself._

The Joker's lair had been the warehouse farthest to the right, and despite the fact that the buildings were interconnected, it was still a long way from one end to the other. Bruce made his way towards it carefully, avoiding the streetlights to keep his movements invisible. He stopped right in front of it, staring at the door with his arms folded. It seemed beyond foolish to just waltz right into whatever the Joker had set up in that warehouse. What then? The Joker had to have anticipated him trying to come through the other doors. Those would be trapped and rigged. The front door too. Nothing was simple with the Joker. Riddles running in circles, and traps inside of traps.

After a minute, Bruce pulled out the heat-seeking goggles, hoping that those would give him an idea of what he was facing, but they showed him nothing inside any of the warehouses. Not that that was surprising. With the warehouses the size they were, the goggles might not pick up on people if they were very far inside. They were designed to see into buildings the size of apartments or offices, not football fields. Maybe if he was on the roof…

The roof.

Moving quickly now that he'd decided on a course of action, Bruce shot his grapple gun at the ledge of the roof next to the warehouse he needed to get into and swung himself up. A dummy attack first or go straight in? No time for the decoys and checks he wanted. Dawn was approaching, and with it the police. Best to go for speed and surprise then. He unwrapped a small packet of explosives from its casings in his belt, adjusted the settings, and lobbed it hard at the roof. It detonated on impact, and he raced for the crater, falling into the warehouse before the sound of the explosion had faded, cape spread to allow him to drop the full three stor—

He landed instead in bright light, only one floor below the roof, on what seemed to be a very make-shift deck. The floorboards cracked and splintered alarmingly under him, but held. Bruce straightened quickly and spun to face the black blur in his peripheral vision.

His own reflection stared back at him. Many of them did in fact.

_A house of mirrors._ Old mirrors with frilly Victorian carvings, modern mirrors, mirrors with stains and mold spots, stand mirrors and ladies' compact mirrors still smudged with make up. The explosion had shattered some, but what he saw was enough. One at about face height had Groucho Marx glasses and mustache inked in, while several others were smeared with what he very much hoped was brownish-red paint, repeating the word 'Ha' over and over again. Corridors branched in three directions, filled with twists and more passages. He was lucky he'd managed to jump inside a corridor rather than landing on a wall.

Where to go from here? The entire thing was a maze. Bruce was inclined to throw a couple more explosives at the mirror-walls and simply knock his way through, but he decided against it. He only had so many explosives and the Joker was bound to have other things in here than just mirrors, likely including dynamite and gasoline. Just setting off bombs willy-nilly would be stupid. Instead, he began to sprint towards the center of the maze, taking the routes that would bring him towards his target whenever possible, smashing his way through the mirrors when he came to dead ends that would need backtracking for more than a couple of turns.

The labyrinth was as convoluted and dangerous as the Joker's own mind. Tripwires and pressure mats abounded, and the floor was haphazard at best, at some points so brittle that Bruce chose to jump over it rather than push his luck, in others so thick with added boards and ridiculous amounts of nails that it looked like a five-year-old's attempt at a tree house. The Joker was there, Bruce was sure of it, but he made no attempts to find the Batman. That left it to him to work his way towards the inside of the maze; he hoped his sense of direction was staying straight despite all the twists.

He nearly stumbled into a slide in the center of the maze, curved, going down to the concrete floor below. Bruce pulled up short, then picked up a large chunk of smashed mirror glass from the deck and slid it down first. It skittered strangely on the surface, accelerating as it sped down, whooshing up into the air at the slight lip at the bottom.

FWOOM.

Glowing red shot out at the gauntlet and the surface of the glass burst into flame. Oil. The whole slide had been coated with oil. If Bruce had been the one to slide down—

The grease still on the slide caught a spark, and a river of flame suddenly flowed up towards him. Bruce backed away, only for the flame to follow him onto the floor, picking up speed, the heat and smoke increasing. The Joker had to have treated the timbers too for them to catch so fast. Something behind one of the mirrors suddenly exploded in the heat, glass flying everywhere, and the inferno roared like a monster catching its prey. Bruce threw out dignity and ran, leaping lightly over a tripwire, going by instinct and memory more than sight as the smoke blurred sight and breath, mirrors shattering as explosives behind them were triggered. Had to do something, get out, get up, get...

_Get down. Get beneath the smoke._ Bruce's foot caught on a weaker board, one that cracked underfoot, and he made himself stop, stamped hard on the deck. He could just explode it, but if the fire hadn't spread to the floor beneath this one, Bruce didn't want to set something off. The board splintered and he bent down, used the spikes on his gauntlets to rip huge chunks of the floor away. The flames were all around him now, and he plunged down, feet first, cape spread as he dropped the remaining two stories. His feet slammed into the ground and he allowed his knees to buckle, rolled to put out any stray sparks, flipped onto his feet, head swiveling to take in his new surroundings.

The flames hadn't reached down here. They flickered above, though, loud and angry, giving off a strange, orangey gloom one second, darkening again the next.

Something moved. Bruce's head snapped toward it and something huge and heavy landed hard on his back, knocked him to his knees. He threw himself backwards, head snapping into the face of his attacker and heard familiar laughter in his ears as they rolled, Batman somehow staying on top. A flash of green hair, giggles, a knife slashing, trying to get past the armor. Bruce caught and twisted his wrist, flung the blade away. The Joker tried to pin his arms instead and he somehow broke one loose, twisted so that he was facing his enemy, seized his lank green hair and snapped his head back into the cement—

"NOOOOOO!"

Bruce barely saw the plank swinging at him, ducked his head just in time. His attacker shrieked, kept batting at him with her improvised weapon, luckily avoiding his head most of the time. Her movements were clumsy and rather weak, but still painful. "Let him go! Let my Mr. J—"

He hooked an arm around the Joker's throat and yanked himself and the madman up. The minute the Joker was between him and the woman, she went still.

Bruce stared at her. Somehow, even with the Joker's barely stifled giggles and the roars of the inferno above them, there was silence.

Dr. Quinzel. She was a mess. Not that she had looked good in the brief glimpse Bruce had gotten on that rooftop, but this… her face was bruised and battered, her clothes filthy and torn. She held the plank like a baseball bat, but it was her big blue eyes that caught his attention. There was something both childlike and rabid to them. Unnaturally bright, but with that same burning darkness Bruce had seen in the Joker's.

He hesitated. She'd gone insane. Even Andi couldn't deny that. But he'd promised to save her. "Dr. Quinzel?"

No response, at least from her. The Joker started to shake with suppressed laughter. Bruce grimaced and tried to make his voice as gentle as it could with its growl. "Leena?"

She let out a shriek. "NO! I'm not Leena, I'm Harley-Quinn, now you let my J go, mister, or I'm—"

The Joker let out a modest cough and she broke off, staring avidly at him. It was like nothing Bruce had seen before. Complete and utter, almost doglike, devotion.

"Ya like my handiwork Batty? You tell, uh, your friend, mmm… Taylor… what's happened alright? And make sure she tells that—that, uh, red girl the same thing 'kay?"

Maybe Bruce was imagining it, but he thought he saw Leena give the slightest twitch at the mention of her friends. He turned back to her, hoping to monopolize on it. "Do you want to see Dr. Taylor? Or Isley? I can—"

"Ya know we really should hurry this up," the Joker broke in airily, "We don't wanna stand here until the roof falls in." As if to prove his point, there was an explosion almost directly above them, and chunks of wood and broken glass sprayed to the ground. Bruce grimaced. No time. No time, and he had to save this woman.

"You—" Bruce nodded at Leena, "Get out of here. Run for the exit."

"I'm not leaving Mr.—"

Bruce suddenly pushed the Joker slightly away from him and threw his other hand into the madman's occipital ridge. The Joker went limp and Bruce twisted the sharp edges of his gauntlet against his throat. "Leave. Now. Or I kill him." Bluff, pure and simple. Bruce hoped 'Mr. J' hadn't told her yet that the Batman's murders had all been framed. "Get out of here. Get out and stay away or he dies."

Her eyes started to swim with tears. She looked like a child watching her cat die. "Mr. J! Please, don't hurt him. Please, please, please."

"GO!"

"Alright! Alright. But if you hurt my angel…" She started sob as she went for an exit. Bruce waited until she'd passed out of sight, then slung the Joker over his shoulder and raced for the place where he'd first dropped into the warehouse.

Wood and glass were falling everywhere now, like some sort of rainstorm. It wouldn't be long before the whole structure fell on them. Bruce guessed as well as he could where he'd come in, then tossed another explosive up. It detonated, and Bruce could just barely make out one edge of the crater. The grapple gun came out, Bruce hooked himself and the Joker on, and they flew up, onto the roof and out. He dashed for another warehouse a safe distance from the flames as a loud crash sounded below and behind him, the roof collapsing. He could only hope Leena had gotten out alive.

* * *

**Author's Note**: H-Hi guys! It's, um, been a little while, yeah? I'm back now though, and on Spring Break, so I might even be able to post a little early too next time.

I think I mentioned a couple posts back that we're nearing the climax of the story, and a few of y'all commented on that in the reviews, so just let me clear things up: climax is a relative term. Things are all starting to come together now, sides are finally being taken, and the epic fight begins! But that doesn't mean the story's about to end, just that the ante's been upped. By my count, there's still going to be about... five or six chapters left (and that's if I stick to the outline) before things finish off, so Andi and the gang are going to be here for a little while longer.

Thank y'all SO MUCH for the response you've been giving lately. I've been absolutely floored by the awesome and often thought provoking responses, particularly to last chapter. I never expected anyone to get so emotionally invested in the characters, and I'm so glad you found Leena's fall compelling. I promise that that was the darkest the story's going to get, at least as I have it planned.

If y'all are on vacation, have a good one and stay safe!


	22. Toxic

**Chapter 22:** Toxic

"How do you still not know what it is?" Gordon demanded. Andi stayed quiet, watching through the glass as doctors in biohazard suits scurried around two dozen members of the city council, barely visible under the array of medical equipment they were hooked up to. "You've been at this for two hours and you've got _nothing?"_

"That's not quite accurate. We do know, um, quite a few things." The doctor, an elderly man with wispy hair, seemed distinctly unimpressed with the Commissioner's sizzling temper as he glanced through the notes on his clipboard. "The symptoms aren't quite like anything we've ever observed before. Um, immediate, excruciating pain as soon as the poison floods the system, along with a high fever, and loss of coherency within one to three hours. This toxin has never been seen before so far as my colleagues and I can determine, so there's no way to tell exactly what it's going to do to the subjects, but it seems to be organic in source, and as far as we can determine hasn't attacked anything but the, um, peripheral nervous system." He flipped a page, voice so dull that even an attack on over twenty people somehow sounded boring. "Um, it may be worth noting that the level of poison seems to be increasing, although there is no way they can have received more in the past three hours given that—"

Gordon slapped the clipboard down and glared straight into the man's face. "Exactly how contagious is this?"

"Um…" the scientist tried to flip through a couple of notes on his clipboard, but when Gordon showed no sign of letting go, he pushed his glasses closer to his eyes and continued on his own. "We're not sure it is. These people were injected with the, um, substance, which makes my colleagues and I suspect it's a simple poison rather than a biological weapon. Those are normally meant to be extremely contagious, caught by breathing it in from someone else or something like that. We've also treated them with both antibiotics and what anti-viral treatments we have, with no response. This, again, increases the likelihood of it being purely a toxin. But, um, given the high profile of the subjects attacked, and the number of them, we contacted the CDC as per your request. They concur with our hypothesis."

"Then why are their toxin levels _rising_?" Andi asked. "And if you're so sure, why are all the men down there still wearing biohazard suits?"

He looked down his nose a bit at her, but Andi glared right back; after the death-eyes Bruce gave her on a nearly constant basis, this man's attempt to intimidate her seemed laughable. After a minute he sighed and shrugged. "There's also a slim chance that it is bacterial or viral; we don't think virus, and are treating them with antibiotics to, um, no real effect. But with the overuse of antibiotics, there are numerous bacteria developing which might, um, potentially…"

"Get to the point man!" Gordon snapped. The scientist blinked.

"Antibiotic resistance is becoming quite common. If a bacteria with just the right exotoxin became resistant _and_ was able to reproduce quickly, it might be able to do this. But with a toxin like this, for it not to have been registered by the CDC it would have had to have been specifically researched and engineered, and with the resources needed for that, much less the training—"

"Is there anyone in Gotham who could have access to the materials needed for it?"

"They, um, mentioned that Hartford Labs had most of the necessary equipment, but the Joker blew up most of that so we didn't think—"

Gordon cut him off with a roar that made Andi jump. "YOU MEAN WE VERY POSSIBLY HAVE A FULL-BLOWN BIOLOGICAL ATTACK ON THIS CITY AND YOU BUREAUCRATS AND SCIENTISTS WERE SO BUSY PLAYING DOCTOR THAT YOU COULDN'T THINK TO CALL THE POLICE COMMISSIONER OR THE CDC UNTIL THREE HOURS AFTER YOU FOUND OUT ABOUT IT?"

The seriousness of the situation finally seemed to break the scientist from his academia-induced muddle. Or maybe he was finally scared stiff by Gordon's fearsome expression. He looked almost comical, the way his eyes widened and his voice pitch went up into a squeak. "Well, um, there haven't been other cases reported yet and—"

"Listen to me." Gordon's voice went deadly quiet. "You will quarantine any and every man, woman, and child they have been in contact with in the past thirteen hours. Then, you will call the mayor and have him implement every single biodefense system we have. Tell him that he will get the National Guard here within two hours to help or I will personally make sure that every one of his professional _and_ personal scandals is leaked to the press, bureaucracy be damned. Get all health care professionals alerted and pull every scientific research center that is still halfway operational to work on identifying and curing this. And if you ever—"

Andi crept away towards the door and, once safely out of the room, dashed for the nearest bathroom and locked herself in the stall. She leaned back against the wall and slowly slid down until she was sitting on the cold tile, her legs folded beneath her, hands clutching her head even though her headache had mostly faded by now. She could count. Three hours. It had been three hours since the attacks had happened. Although it seemed like an eternity since Pam had pulled that gun on her, she knew it had only been about fourteen hours ago. She was no fool. A few hours to compose herself, to prepare, and then… these must be the council members who had voted to destroy that park. Pam had called hoping that Andi would join her, or improve the plan, or maybe even talk her out of it, and when she hadn't, her friend had gone out alone and…

What could she do? Tell Gordon? Pam was already a fugitive, she'd been off the grid for awhile now. He wouldn't be able to find her. And… Andi couldn't do it. Turning her friend in might be the right thing to do, and maybe Andi was giving in, but she _couldn't_. Not after losing Leena too. Gordon would find out soon enough anyways if Pam had been foolish enough to actually inject the people with the virus herself. Her appearance was distinctive, especially compared to all these old bumbling doctors.

Her fingers were trembling so hard that it was difficult to dial the familiar number on her cellphone, and when she finally did, Pam didn't answer. Andi could only hope she would listen to the message.

"Pam? It's me. Look, I promise I'm not trying to turn you in, but we need to talk. About what's happened and—listen, I have news on Leena. Please. Just—just call me. There are some really, really important things I need to tell you." Andi couldn't make herself hang up. "Can you please just—I know I haven't been honest, but I need you Pam. You're the only person I can still trust, and with what I've just heard I think I must be crazy saying it, but it's true. Pam if you're there _please_ pick—"

"Andi?"

_"Pam."_ Andi swallowed, tried to remember how to breathe. "I—I need to see you. I know you don't trust me and you think—"

"Abandoned apartment complex on the corner of Eighth and Pine View. Second floor, third room on the right." The line went dead.

Andi took a deep breath and pocketed the phone, trying to think. One step at a time. First, meet Pam. She'd need a car if she was going to do that. Gordon.

Her boss was now surrounded by a flurry of doctors, scientists, and police officers, sending them running with directions as fast as they came, alternately jabbering on his radio and cellphone. When Andi walked in, however, he caught her eye and broke off. "Stevens. Take over here."

He crossed over to her and pulled her to the side. "Taylor, I need you to go home. Tell Barbara what's happening and stay there, make sure she doesn't go out or expose either you or herself under any circumstances. Some of these cops are dirty and might sell you out to the Joker if he escapes."

"Sir—"

He shoved a set of keys into her hand. "It's a plain car, you shouldn't attract any attention. Hurry up."

Andi was on the verge of protesting again when another cop crossed over and tapped Gordon's shoulder. "Sir. We were interviewing a councilman's wife and two children when they began to show symptoms. It's spreading."

She caught a glimpse of panic on Gordon's already-worried face, and then it was gone as he turned around and plunged back into the fray. He gave her a last, searing glance, ordering her to go.

Andi didn't see that there was much of a choice. She went.

* * *

"Andi?" The door barely cracked open to reveal one of Pam's bright green eyes, a flash of her red hair.

"Pam. In the name of all that is holy, let me in."

Her eye disappeared from view and Andi heard the sound of a chain lock being pulled back. Andi quickly stepped inside.

Somehow Pam had managed to coax electricity from the abandoned building. The lights were dim, but they stayed on, illuminating her friend's dirt-smudged face and bedraggled clothes and hair. About the only thing in her wardrobe that still looked to be in mint condition was the pistol pushed through her belt. There was a small mini-fridge humming in one corner and an emergency news report was playing on a giant, ancient TV set behind them, the anchors telling about the attacks on the city council. Mercifully the words 'biological weapons' hadn't been mentioned yet from what Andi could see. Gotham might collapse with knowledge of that added terror; despite the city's resilience, there was only so much it could take. On the other hand, if they didn't know about it, many might not know they needed to go to the hospital. Some wouldn't anyways. Illegal immigrants afraid of deportation, elderly without anyone to take them, street kids with no one who cared…

"If you've come here to lecture me about it, you can save your breath and leave," Pam growled, her eyes following Andi's, "As far as I'm concerned, those bastards deserve worse. And I'm not planning to kill them either if that's what you're wondering."

Andi stared at her. "What _are _you planning?"

Pam sighed. "You're being self-righteous about this aren't you?" She smiled just a little, which did nothing to lift the grim aura she seemed to have acquired. "I've got a treatment for the poison. I'll let these council members stew for a little bit longer, let everyone realize that what anti-toxins and pain medications they have aren't working, then contact the police and let them know I'll give them the antidote in return for them leaving the park alone. They'll arrest me and everything, probably drag my name through the muck and keep me in jail for the rest of my life if they don't execute me, but I don't care. The park will be safe. And I'll tell them about my research, so the anti-toxin will still be used. Nobody should be hurt in the long run over this but me, and I've made my peace with that."

_She doesn't know,_ Andi realized. _She just thought she was getting the city council. She never realized—_"It's spreading Pam."

"What do you mean? What's spreading?"

"The bacteria. Pam, you didn't just give them a toxin, you gave them the bacteria that makes it, and it's infecting others. It's not on the news yet, but I was at the hospital observing what's been happening. People are catching it besides those you poisoned, and unless Gordon gets _very_ lucky, the whole city's going to be dealing with an epidemic in a matter of hours. Cases were already starting to come in when I was leaving, and several of them were _children_. Pam, you have to believe me. This thing is catching, and unless you can give us the cure, people are going to die. And not just those on the council."

"No." Horror slowly dawned in Pam's eyes but she still shook her head, "No, that's impossible. I mean… yes, I created it from a bacterial exotoxin I engineered, but then I killed everything living in those injections! I didn't have all the equipment I'd normally use, but I specifically insured that all the bacteria were—"

"You missed one. And this one's resistant to antibiotics. Natural selection breeds bacteria to be as hardy as possible, it would take a lot of work to create a strain that completely lost that ability. And, brilliant as you are, biological weapons aren't your specialty, cures and anti-toxins are. You've been working with them for what? Two weeks? Three? Even if you knew the process from your work, there were a lot of things you could have messed up on." Andi paused and Pam stared straight ahead, unresponsive. Nothing to do but keep going. "Please. Believe me. I know you were only trying to fix things Pam, but we _need_ that cure. If you get it to me, I'll make sure you're not blamed. We'll forget this ever happened, and I think I can even make sure that that park gets protected." Bruce would help her with that. He owed her after all, and he had enough money to buy the park himself if he had to. "But I need you to trust me, Pam."

Pam locked eyes with her for several seconds, and then covered her mouth, her hands shaking. "Children?" Slowly she stood and crossed the room to a small mini-fridge, pulled out a clear vial of liquid. There were sudden tears in her brilliant green eyes.

"I—I never meant for that to happen Andi. I swear, I just wanted to help. And you probably think I was an idiot, but I did make a safety plan for something like this; there's an anti-toxin, and with it the bacteria becomes harmless long enough for the body to recover and—"

The door crashed open and Andi and Pam spun towards it, Pam pulling the gun from her belt. Both of them stared at the intruder for a split second and then Pam let out a shriek and dropped her pistol.

_"Leena!"_

She leapt at their friend and enveloped her in a bear hug. Leena tolerated it for about two seconds then pulled away.

"Sheesh Red, I love you too but c'mon. I'm here on business."

Pam jerked back as if slapped and Leena turned to Andi with a mocking smile. "What? You aren't happy to see me?"

Andi stared at her friend. Pam's eyes, normally so observant and sharp, seemed to be missing what Andi was seeing. Hair pulled up in two fluffy pigtails, a jester's motley of bruises all across her face, and a vapid, childlike expression in her eyes that Andi had never seen before. There was nothing there of kindness or gentle nature any more. It was as if Leena had disappeared and some stranger now wore her friend's skin.

"I saw the warehouse," she whispered. "You—what—did you…"

"Yep. I killed 'em," Leena said proudly, like a kid telling her mom she'd gotten an A+ on a test. "All of 'em. Mr. J told me that it was one hundred percent perfect. _He_ thinks I'm a natural."

"Mr. J?" Pam looked as if she'd been hit in the head with a very heavy object. "You killed who? Leena what—what happened?"

Leena gave Andi an incredulous look. "You mean you didn't tell her? You've been up here for _ages_, I watched you go in. Didn't you _miss me?_"

Before either of them could answer, she twirled inside, light as a dancer. She kicked the TV's plug from its socket, then perched lightly on the old machine, legs crossed primly. Andi saw several lurid bruises traveling up her calves and arms, matching the map the bruises and cuts had carved onto her face. She took a deep breath. "J taught me to be like him!"

'_I've been assigned to the Joker!_' It was the exact same excited tone of that innocent young woman she had been a few weeks ago. Andi wanted to be sick.

"What do you mean? How?" Pam demanded, obviously trying to pull herself together. "Leena, what did he do to you?"

"Nah-ah. I'm not _Leena_ anymore. I'm Harley-Quinn. And he showed me the way the world works. That's the joke, ya see? _You_, Pamela Isley, think that it's good, and you set up your whole pathetic crusade to take care of it. You think it's worth _saving—"_

"No…" Pam whispered.

"—When it's just… well… it's not. You see—"

"WHAT DID HE DO TO YOU?"

Leena let out a malicious shriek of laughter. "Hit a nerve didn't I? You just can't stand it, can you? All your life you tried to make the world _better_ and where'd it get you? Nobody listens to you, and all the big guys in charge only make it worse. They _laugh_ at you."

"_No._ Just—Just shut up, Leena. You don't know what you're talking about, you were the one who taught me—"

Leena grinned and leaned in. "What if I showed you how to laugh at them instead?"

"That's not the point." Even Andi couldn't deny the pleading in Pam's voice, the fact that she was obviously trying to convince herself of what she was saying. "Please… just tell me. What happened Leena? What—"

"If you _insist_." Leena's mouth twisted. "You're such a killjoy! Ah well. I killed a kid. And an old guy. And a retarded idiot, but I _liked _that part. Bailey too. You shoulda seen the look on his face. But I made him, um, smile eventually."

"You… liked… it?"

"Yep. They didn't though." Leena stuck out her tongue and puckered her lips, lolled her face grotesquely to mimic the same terrified expression Andi had seen on Saint's face a few hours ago. That was enough. Andi couldn't keep silent.

"Leena. Come on. Let us help you. Whatever happened—"

She rode right over her, ignoring Andi in favor of Pam's transfixed, broken expression. "Whaddaya think Pam? You looked up to me, didn't ya? After poor little Ivy died, it was _me_ you decided to trust. Thought that if _I_ was so wonderful there'd have to be _something_ good in the world, even if you didn't see it."

"Stop it."

"—That's the joke though my _dear_ Dr. Isley. There's—_nothing_—worth—saving. You're—"

"_Stop it."_

"—just a pathetic little do-gooding eco-freak who's failing even when she tries to take things into her own—"

"STOP IT!"

Both Andi and Leena stared as Pam sank to the ground, shaking uncontrollably. Hoarse, ragged sobs ripped through her, her red hair cascaded around her face, curtaining it from view. Leena giggled slightly after a minute and started to tap her foot against the TV, creating a strange counterpoint music to the beat of Pam's shuddering breaths.

"Pam?" Andi gently placed her hand on the redhead's shoulder, "Come on Pam. Get up."

No movement. Andi tried again. "Hey, it's ok. Come on. Let's take Leena into an asylum. Then we'll get that cure to a hospital and—"

Pam looked up, her wet eyes skittering desperately between Leena and Andi and back to Leena. Slowly she stood up, and her broken expression _changed_. Andi couldn't say whether something in her snapped apart or came together, but the desperate, lost look in her eyes disappeared, morphed into absolute fury in the blink of an eye. She yanked her arm from Andi's and turned to face her, bristling like a feral cat. "An _asylum_?" she hissed, "_Why?_ I think Harley's _right."_

Leena let out a squeal of delight and hopped down, hugging Pam around the waist. "I _knew_ you'd see it my way Pam! We'll have so much fun together. After we free Mr. J—"

"Free him?"

"Yeah, Andi's friend the Bat captured him. That's what I came for." Her face drew back into a pout, bottom lip sticking out. "Can you help me break him loose? You were always the smart one, Red, and I just can't figure any way to get him free."

Andi's throat was stuck together with shock and horror. This madman had kidnapped Leena, put her through who knew what sort of hell, and all she wanted was to set him free again? Was there even anything left of her friend's mind?

Their eyes locked and Andi realized. No. No, Leena no longer existed. All there was was Harley, a woman as insane as the Joker himself.

"I'll do it." Pam looked almost startled as she said the words, but her back became straighter, her voice stronger as she continued. She looked almost like the old Pam again, but tougher now, and utterly ruthless. This new woman was no longer inhibited by silly little questions about right and wrong. "I've already got a plan I think. Or an idea, at least. If that's what you want Harley."

"YES!" Harley jumped up, punched the air with one fist. "This'll be _fun!_ C'mon!" She started to drag Pam towards the door but Andi desperately caught Pam by the sleeve. She had to stop them, or delay them or _something_.

"Pam. Please, at least give me the antidote. Innocent people are going to _die_ without this Pam."

Pam snorted and gave her a pitying look. "You still don't get it do you? Andi… there _are_ no more innocent people in Gotham. If there ever were."

Despite her words, she pulled out the medicine and looked at it speculatively, then grabbed a hypodermic needle from her pocket and deftly filled it with half of the bottle's contents. She turned back to Andi and cocked her head. "Except you I suppose. I guess that means you, at least, deserve this."

Andi tried to jerk away, but Pam had always been the most athletic of the three. She seized Andi's wrist and stuck the needle into her skin before Andi could push her away, and sudden fire burned in her veins.

Thoughts of resistance fled as Andi clutched her hand. It was like the gasoline in her cuts all over again, a thousand times worse, spreading up her arm, across her body, lacing through her blood vessels, heart, lungs, organs within seconds. She twitched involuntarily, thrashed, fell to her knees and then onto her side, whimpering, barely keeping the sound from stretching into screams.

Someone knelt next to her. Red hair. "Pam…" she moaned, "Poison me… _Why_?"

"Sorry, Andi, I know it hurts. It's _not_ going to kill you though. I injected you with an enzyme designed to break down the toxin, like I said. The thing is… I also put a bit of the poison in the injection so it's as painful as the cure, at least until the enzyme is activated by your body heat and starts to go to work. I wanted the bastards on the city council to get a last little kick before they got better, make them afraid it wasn't working at first. It'll wear off in an hour, I promise."

Andi felt a small hand smooth her hair back. Harley. "Geez, Andi, you're a mess. Maybe when you feel better you can come with us?"

"Maybe," Pam sighed. "She's always been stubborn though, Harl. We should go before she pulls herself together and tries to stop us. If you ever do want to join us, Andi, we'll be waiting. I mean that."

"No…" Andi wasn't sure if she was speaking the word to them or to herself, or even if she spoke at all. She thought she heard a door slam, but her eyes were burning with tears and chemicals and she couldn't see. "_NO!_ Come back, come back _please_. Pam… Leena…"

There was nothing. Andi had known there wouldn't be. She rolled over and felt the agony overcome her.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hey y'all. So I know that I said this post might be early, but I sort of lied (does a day before usual count?). Spring Break wasn't quite as productive as I'd planned, but the main thing was that I realized halfway through writing this chapter that I knew absolutely nothing about biological warfare. Despite research that's probably landed me on several government watchlists, I'm still the farthest thing from an expert, so if any of you _are_... well, I'm not going to lie, I'd find that very scary, but I'd also listen to what you tell me before reporting you to the FBI so you'd have a little bit of time to run if you feel like sharing. The flip side of that goes too; if you found the explanations and scientific jargon too confusing, tell me so I can clarify!

A couple of you mentioned that you found it surprising how easy the Joker was captured last chapter, so if any of you people in lurkerdom are wondering the same thing, first of all come out of the shadows and say so, and second of all let me reassure you that there _is_ a reason for why he made it so easy that'll be discussed in the near future.

As always, reviewers are my heroes!


	23. Sides

**Chapter 23:** Sides

Bruce pulled up short just inside the apartment's lobby, stock still, listening with all his might. The GPS kept in the police car had gotten him to the corner, but he'd had no clue where Andi had gone from there until he'd heard—

Another scream came from upstairs, quickly choking off into sobs. "Andi!" Bruce charged up the stairs three at a time, and started to kick in doors. "Andi where are you?"

He almost missed her, half a dozen rooms through the hall. She was curled up tight on the floor, unmoving, a pained tautness trapping every line of her body. Oh God. Bruce paused to make sure the gas mask around his lower face was strapped on tight, then turned her over to face him. "Andi?"

Her eyes flicked around blindly, until they finally caught on his face. She squinted, then flinched in recognition. "Bruce…" she mumbled, "…go 'way… don't see me like…" her voice trailed off into incoherent mutters, then whimpers.

Bruce ignored the resistance in her muscles as he pulled her arms from where they were clutched tight to her chest and stretched them out so he could examine them. Sure enough, there was a small bruise forming around a tiny puncture wound on her left wrist. She hadn't just caught the disease, she'd been injected with it. That must be why she was so badly affected, and so quickly.

"Andi I'm going to have to move you," he whispered, his voice distorted through the mask, "I'll take you to the Manor and we'll start treating you."

"No. Lemme alone…" Bruce carefully got his gloved hands under her, and lifted her up. For such a light woman it was surprisingly difficult; she twisted constantly in his arms, either from the pain of the injection or some bizarre desire for him to let her go. It took some maneuvering to get down the steps and outside while keeping his grip on her. Much to his relief, the Lamborghini was still where he'd left it in the deserted parking garage and it purred to life without a problem.

It was eerie to see the streets so deserted. Two hours ago, Bruce had had to push through riots as he carried the Joker to Arkham, but as news of the biological attack finally leaked, people had leapt into the safety of their homes. Now it was only Bruce, a few ambulances, and one or two of the more adventurous or desperate on the road. He used the empty space to his advantage, flagrantly ignoring speed limits, the speedometer edging up a few more miles every time Andi suppressed another shudder or moan. How had she done this? Thirty minutes after she left Gordon and she had somehow tracked down the person responsible. She must have. That was the only explanation for the presence of the injection mark.

The car was zooming at a speed closer to two hundred than one by the time he pulled up the Manor. Andi lay still now, eyebrows pinched together, breathing ragged, not even reacting when he lifted her into his arms and sprinted up the stairs.

"ALFRED! Alfred get over—"

"Master Wayne!" The butler hurried over, a gas mask already strapped to his own face. "Has she—"

"Been injected. I need you to get on the phone with Fox, find out what antibiotics are showing the most promise, and hook her up to whatever she needs to make her lucid." Bruce carried her into her room as he spoke and laid her out carefully on the top of her bed. Alfred followed.

"Potentially damaging ones included?"

"What?"

"There are some promising medicines, but they have some… unfortunate side effects, sir."

Bruce hesitated. Andi knew vital information. If she was hurt in the process of finding out what that was… she would be willing to make that sacrifice. But this was his call, not hers. "No. No, just ones that will actually help her. But no heavy pain medications that will keep her from thinking straight if she does wake up."

"Yes sir." Alfred bustled out, already pulling out a phone, then came back in a minute later, wheeling different bits of medical equipment and jabbering a mile a minute with Fox. Bruce leapt to help, but Alfred gave the same stern look he had given when Bruce was a child and glanced pointedly at an armchair. Bruce obediently took a seat, watching as Alfred finally hung up the phone, deftly inserted an IV, added a few other medicines to the saline solution, and attached pulse and breathing monitors. He gave Bruce a sympathetic look over the gas mask.

"There's nothing else we can do for her now sir. You should probably—"

"I'm not leaving. There's nothing Batman can be doing right now anyways. Not until Fox can figure out how to stop the virus or Andi tells me who's responsible."

Alfred sighed but headed for the door. "I'll prepare a spot of tea then, sir."

The room was absolutely quiet except for the beeping of the monitors and the sound of their own breathing. Andi was still except for her slow, shuddering breaths that almost sounded like sobs. For the first time, Bruce noticed how small she really was. Not as tiny as Dr. Quinzel, but still short and, in this state, surprisingly fragile.

He closed his eyes, put his head in his hands. _What am I doing?_ He could almost feel Rachel standing over his shoulder. Wasn't one woman dying for him enough? Was he really going to keep dragging Andi into trouble as well? What were all his efforts to save Gotham worth if he couldn't even protect one person?

* * *

Andi groaned and slowly shifted her body. It felt… heavy. Too heavy for her to move without the greatest concentration. She focused on breathing, the sensation clean and painless now and, when she had reassured herself that she could think clearly again, slowly opened her eyes.

Bright sunlight left her blinded at first, but the sensation didn't send the lancing agony she'd expected into her head. Slowly, her eyes adjusted, and she saw that she lay back in her own oversized bed, someone leaning over her, a gas mask obscuring the lower half of his face. "Bruce?" She thought she remembered him finding her, but at that point she'd been so far gone it might just as easily have been hallucinations.

"Alfred! It's working, she's awake!" Bruce bellowed over his shoulder. Andi heard footsteps shuffling towards the room and a moment later the elderly man joined them, a gas mask on his own face.

"How do you feel, Miss Andi?"

"I…" How to describe it? Not just the lack of pain; she felt extraordinarily refreshed. As if she'd woken up from a deep, dreamless sleep, but without any of the grogginess. "Really well actually. That—"

Her elbow twinged as she shifted her arm and Andi glanced down at it, at the IV bag hooked up to her. "_What's in this?"_ She half-shrieked the words.

"Antibiotics. One of them must have started working for you to—"

"Oh gosh, _no!_ Get that out, you could contaminate it!" Andi started to tear at the surgical tape holding the needle in, her clumsy fingers tangling in the tubing until Bruce caught her wrist. He refused to let go no matter how she twisted.

"Andi, calm down. You've been infected, but you seem to be responding to one of the medicines. We've got to keep the IV in and see if we can figure out which one. Just stay still, alright?"

"No, no listen, I'm not sick!" The frantic, hysterical tone was never going to convince anyone. Andi made herself lower her voice, but it was still desperate and pleading. "I've never been sick, I got injected with the _cure_ not the disease, but with all these new chemicals pumping into my body, isolating it's going to be next to impossible."

"You're not sick? Do you have a vaccine or an antidote?"

"Antidote; vaccines only work on viruses. The way it was explained to me made it sound like it fights the exotoxin and—look, that's not important. Just get this out of me, get samples of my blood to labs, and then we'll talk biology alright?"

Bruce stared down at her for several seconds, then slowly released her. Andi finished ripping off the tape and yanked the needle free. He didn't say anything, so she wadded the sheet over the blood and turned to Alfred instead. "You wouldn't by any chance have a way to collect blood would you? We need to get mine to the labs as soon as possible."

"Give me a minute, Miss. I'll see what I can find." Alfred left the room and Andi leaned back. Her body felt good, but as she relaxed her mind started to dredge up memories of the past few days. That was enough to make her want to sleep again.

"Are you alright?" Bruce asked softly. Andi cracked an eye open and gave him a wry glance.

"Aside from getting knocked out twice in the past three hours?" Truthfully it was the least of her pains, but she didn't really feel like bringing any of the others up.

"I'm sorry. About my part in that I mean."

Andi stared. Had Bruce just said he was _sorry?_ She decided to push her luck and see if that meant he would talk with her.

"What happened? With the Joker. And Leena." _'Andi's friend the Bat captured him.'_ Did that mean Bruce had seen Leena? Or had Leena just seen him or even figured out their connection later?

"He's in Arkham now."

"_Arkham_?"

Bruce shrugged as he unbuckled the gas mask from his face. With it gone, Andi could see that he looked even more tired than usual. "The police station's been blown up, and the doctors there have at least some experience dealing with him. Gordon and I had agreed weeks ago that it was the best place, and he's been keeping policemen there around the clock to take him off my hands. Besides, nobody will think to look for him at Arkham."

Andi was about to point out that perhaps this was because the Joker could walk out of there any time he so chose, but Bruce scooted his chair in closer, his face becoming very solemn.

"About Leena… I'm afraid I have some very bad news Andi. When I was fighting the Joker, I found your friend Dr. Quinzel as well. Battered, but alive. As soon as I captured the Joker, though, she attacked me. I tried to help her, to convince her to come with me, but she refused." Bruce flinched, and it sounded as if he had to force himself to speak the next words. "Andi, I don't know how to tell you this, but he's broken her. Your friend has gone mad."

Andi stared straight ahead, seeing the bruised, pathetic madwoman that was all the Joker had left of her friend. Harley. What he'd done to her was worse than murder, worse even than rape or abuse. Those took apart your body and life but the Joker… he had destroyed Leena's soul.

She would kill him. She'd kill him, and she'd make it hurt, and then she would laugh. _She'd_ laugh, not him.

"Don't let him do this to you."

"What?"

Bruce shifted uncomfortably. "I see that look in your eye Andi. And trust me, if there's anyone who knows what you're going through, it's me. But whatever you're planning… it won't make Leena come back. It'll just let the Joker win."

Andi grimaced and felt something very much like tears prick the corners of her eyes. Not coming back. Her friends were gone. "Why _Leena?_" she asked desperately, "She was so innocent. So giving. Why would he have chosen _her?"_

"For those very reasons I think." Bruce shook his head. "The same reasons he keeps trying to break me. Why he _did_ break Dent. Because all of us in some way stood completely opposed to him, and if he could change us then he would believe he had a chance to convert other less sterling examples of humanity."

Andi stayed quiet for a minute, trying to choose her next question. "You captured him, you said?"

"Yes."

Something was wrong, and Andi couldn't quite put her finger on it. "He just left you a note, and you went and got him? That sounds… easy."

"Well, it wasn't." Bruce's voice held a grimace. "Have you ever tried to take down a criminal mastermind who also happens to be a psychopathic pyromaniac? Try it sometime, then come back and tell me how 'easy' things are."

Andi decided not to point out that she'd asked to try and he'd knocked her out instead. Her mind was following it's own track. "Maybe easy is the wrong word, then," she muttered. "But it still sounds simple. For the Joker at least."

"What are you saying? Do you think he _wanted _to get captured?"

"I don't know. I'm no psychiatrist, and you know him better than me. Would he do something like that?"

"He has before. I suppose it's possible. If he has something to gain, if it would make things worse somehow…"

Make things worse. _Can you help me break him loose?_ "Leena's… Leena's gone crazy, you said?" Her voice cracked on the words despite everything she could do. "As in… she's changed sides?"

Bruce stared at her for several seconds. "You think he wants her to come after him?"

"He always tries to prove people are evil, doesn't he? Well, we don't know why Leena… in the warehouse…" she couldn't make herself say it. "But maybe she had a reason. Maybe she might still be a good person, deep down. If she goes after him now, though…"

"It would prove that she's his." Andi flinched at Bruce's iron tone. He nodded slowly. "It's his style. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if that's what he's after. But in that case… how do we stop her?"

Both Andi and Bruce stayed quiet, lost in their own thoughts, only broken free when the door opened again and admitted Alfred.

"Let's start drawing that blood shall we?" He slowly wheeled in what looked to be average blood sampling paraphernalia and carefully took it around to the other side of Andi's bed so that he could collect from her undamaged arm. "Are you feeling strong enough for this, Miss?"

"It's just blood Alfred. Physically, I really do feel fine," Andi said, holding out her arm obediently so Alfred could wrap the tourniquet around it, then swab her inner elbow with betadine. His movements were slightly less practiced than when he had put stitches in, but assured and calm for all that. For an elderly man he had remarkably steady hands. "Why do you have this stuff anyways? Hospital equipment I can understand, but I would have thought you'd just go to Fox if you needed information on blood samples."

"For occasions like this, Miss. Master Bruce has sometimes encountered toxins, and we often need to draw blood to create an appropriate antidote."

"Oh." Andi watched, unflinching, as Alfred expertly slid the thick needle into a blood vessel and filled the syringe. Bruce cleared his throat and leaned in while Alfred squirted the contents into one of his vials.

"So what happened? Did you figure out who was behind it? And how did you find them in the apartment?"

Andi fully intended to tell Bruce everything. Tell him that she had seen Leena go mad, that Pam had given up and, worst of all, about the guilty suspicion in the pit of her stomach that said she hadn't done enough. Hadn't been enough.

But as she opened her mouth, she couldn't do it. Not the same way she hadn't been able to tell Pam about Bruce. That had been a conscious decision. A realization that something was too important to tell, and the choice to keep quiet. This… at the thought of telling anyone, even Bruce, _especially_ Bruce, Andi's stomach clenched and she almost choked on her own breath. No matter what they had done, she couldn't betray her friends.

"Andi?" Bruce laid a careful hand on her forehead. "Are you dizzy? Relapsing?"

"No. No I'm fine," Andi forced out. Something soft pressed against the crease of her elbow, and she realized that Alfred was pressing gauze on it, unwrapping the tourniquet.

"We've collected quite enough, Miss. I don't want you getting sick or weak."

"I really am fine Alfred. It's just my mind that's having trouble right now. And the labs will need as much of my blood as they can get their hands on."

Alfred waited for Bruce's nod before he reinserted the needle and took another sample. Bruce turned back to Andi with a patient expression.

_Lie. If I can't tell the truth, give him something that might help at least._ "I—I called Pam for help," Andi began. She needed this to line up with her cellphone record in case Bruce had been keeping an eye on that. "There aren't many scientists in Gotham with the know-how and resources to engineer this and I thought she might be able to give me a list of people to start looking at." She paused. Not too distant from the truth. Perhaps that was the best way to go; keep it simple, keep it realistic.

"She mentioned one of the weirder scientists who had worked at her lab, one who always seemed to be a bit… off from the others. Dr. Jason Woodrue. She gave me the address." Woodrue had been one of those killed in the destruction of Pam's lab, but it would be easy enough to manipulate evidence so that it looked as if he had faked it. It had taken dental records to identify him and Andi could swap them or something without too much trouble. And, from everything Pam had said, he had been a genuine creep. Andi didn't feel too bad about smearing his name.

"The building was abandoned for years though," Bruce pointed out. Andi made herself shrug casually even though inwardly she was beginning to sweat. She was making this up as she went; figuring out details like that were what was going get her caught.

"Pam seemed to know more about him than just a colleague," she invented. "I have a feeling they went out before she realized he was off the deep end. She knew enough to pass on where he probably was to me, and things had gone so wrong I didn't want to take the time to find out how she knew."

Bruce arched an eyebrow. "Alright. But he was he there when you went in?"

"Yes." Back on safe ground. "He let me in and started to tell me about a mushroom he'd found…"

From there she kept the story as close to the truth as possible. Pam's name was replaced with Woodrue's, and she made it sound as if he didn't care that the bacteria was spreading so that Leena could be edited from the story altogether, but the basic structure was the same. The only pause she took was when Alfred finally finished with the blood work, but he stayed in the room, as intent on her story as Bruce.

"… I thought he'd given me the toxin at first," she concluded, "But he said it was actually the antidote. And for all that had happened, he still seemed very honest. Crazed, but honest. He genuinely believes in what he's doing."

"Why do you think he gave you the cure, then?"

"I really don't know Bruce." That was the truth, pure and simple. Andi might be Pam's friend, but she hadn't thought Pam would risk all of her plans for destruction to save Andi. Perhaps it meant there was some good still in her.

She had gone quiet, Andi realized suddenly. Bruce was watching her closely, and she made herself not twitch or look away from his gaze.

Finally he nodded to himself and the moment broke. "Do he say anything about other plans? Or what—"

"The Joker. He wants to free the Joker." Andi said unthinkingly. Bruce stared.

"How did he even know the Joker was captured?"

_Damn_. Just when she had thought she was in the clear… "I don't think he does," Andi covered quickly, "But he seems to be relying on the mayhem the Joker creates to help cover his tracks. If the Joker's back at Arkham, Woodrue might let him out so that he'd distract the police from finding him."

It sounded rather lame to her, but Bruce nodded slowly. "I'll head to Arkham, then, tell them to increase security against him."

"The bacteria? Are you sure you'll be—"

Bruce tapped the gas mask sitting next to him. "Fox figured out it's spread by breathing in air almost directly from an infected person. So long as I wear this when I'm within two feet of anyone, I'll be fine. And they think they've managed to contain it to a few sections of the city; it's still hundreds of people, but it looks like this won't turn into the apocalypse at least. Now you should get some sleep."

As she had told them several times before, Andi was not the least bit tired, but she didn't bother arguing. The door closed behind them, and Andi curled up under the covers, trying not to think.

Bruce and Alfred left the room together. "Get those samples to Fox immediately and have them tested." Bruce said the moment they were out of earshot from Andi's door. "Call me if you find anything useful."

"Yes sir. Might I ask where you're going?"

"Checking with the news stations to make sure they don't know the Joker's captured yet, or at least where he's been put. Then to Arkham to check that he's being kept under high security, then back to that apartment. I'm not a trace analyst, but I still might be able to find something."

"Master Wayne…" Alfred hesitated and Bruce could practically hear his loyalty warring with his discretion. "I think Miss Andi is hiding something."

"You picked up on it too?" Bruce shook his head. "Andi's not telling us everything, but I don't know if it's because she's afraid or she just doesn't want to bother us with it or maybe even her mind is playing tricks on her; it sounds unlikely for Andi, but she _has_ been through a lot of trauma in the past two days. But I trust her. She'd tell me if it was important and with all she's been through in the past few days I didn't want to push."

"Very good sir. Just as long as you are aware of the situation."

Bruce left for the media room while Alfred went in the other direction. GCN was already playing on its large flat screen, and he lounged against the wall, not bothering with any of the seats. The disease was the main news story, but after about five minutes the anchors cut to speculation that the Joker could somehow be involved in the attacks. The theory wasn't getting much support; the Joker's flagrant desire to take the credit for his mayhem would have brought him out of the woodwork by now if he was behind it. But if the theory was on the table then the public in general still thought the Joker was at large. Odds were Woodrue wasn't trying anything yet if that was the case. That was all Bruce needed to know. He turned to go, only for the sound of gunfire and screaming on the screen to spin him back around.

The news anchors had already fallen, red splashed across the pristine set-up, but the shooter remained hidden behind the cameras. Others, presumably the crew and staff, were shrieking or yelling off-screen and he saw one man run in front of the camera before jerking strangely as a bullet punched through him. A couple more loud gunshots and the whole studio went still.

Then a blonde woman skipped onto the scene.

* * *

Andi heard him coming, was already starting to sit up, when her door crashed open so hard that it slammed on the wall and bounced back. Bruce caught it on his arm without looking and strode inside, a deliberate fury in every step.

Despite herself, Andi flinched. She had thought she had seen Bruce at his most dangerous—breaking into her apartment, fighting the Joker—but that was nothing to this. It took an effort to meet his eyes, and when she did, every instinct in her body said to flee. She despised it for that. She had thought she wasn't a coward, but it took a monumental effort to stay in control.

"You know."

Bruce folded her arms and stared darkly down at her with the same murderous severity of the Batman. "Get up."

Andi considered disobeying, but frankly she thought she might deserve whatever wrath he was holding back. She swung her feet off the bed, and Bruce seized her by one arm and dragged her from her room through the winding hallways. Andi stumbled behind him, trying to keep some semblance of balance and match her steps to his rapid long strides.

"Look, Bruce, I know I wasn't entirely truthful but—"

He stopped, yanked her close to him. His whole body was shaking with fury, his grasp bruising on her upper arm. "'Entirely truthful?'" he snarled, "You _lied_. You knew who was behind this, you could have given information that would have helped, and now people are _dying_ because you didn't."

_Dying?_ Bruce almost dragged her into the room with the TVs where she'd first seen Leena's kidnapping play. He more threw than guided her into a chair, then picked up a remote and started up the footage from a few minutes ago.

"Watch it," he growled, but Andi needed no prompting. She stared, trapped in horror, at the dead bodies of the newscasters on the screen.

Leena skipped on camera first. She ignored the chairs behind the desk, instead hopping up onto the ledge and flipping the slumped body of one of the newscasters off to take a seat.

If Andi hadn't known it was her, she might not have recognized her friend. Her hair was still in those ridiculous pigtails and bangs but the rest of her… a loose long sleeved shirt despite the warm weather, divided into quarters that alternated between bright red and faded black. She wore equally baggy black pants, held up by a thick scarlet belt, and a pair of too-large combat boots. Her face was painted like the Joker's, but gave a mottled appearance with all the blotchy bruises underneath. She had clumsily applied dark red lipstick too, mercifully at least not etched into a smile, but it was the same color as the crimson diamond patterned over each eye and the three tiny ones clustered on her left cheek. She twirled a gun in one red gloved hand.

"Hiya!" She beamed at the camera. Andi didn't know how she made her grin so huge with her face as battered as it was. "I'm Harley Quinn. A-and this is…"

She waited for someone to complete the sentence, and when it was clear no one would, she stood on the desk and bellowed: "C'mon, Red, you need to introduce yourself too! Don't be shy!"

'_Red?'_ Andi knew who Harley was talking to, of course, but where had this name come from? After a second, Pam strolled into view. Or maybe sauntered was the right word. She moved like she was on the runway and dressed like it too. Where Harley's whole look was falling apart at the seams, Pam's was cool and collected. Professional almost. Tight brown leather pants, and a sleek, green silk halter top that bared her midriff would have made her look exotic in any company except Harley's though. There was even green make up, not just in huge swoops over her eyes, but in her lipstick as well, and emerald sparkles glinted on her cheeks.

"I'm Poison Ivy," she told the camera, lounging against the desk rather than sitting down. Her voice was a seductive purr. "And I'm the one who's created the toxin. I also have the cure. But I have two conditions before I'll release it."

She looked at Harley, apparently expecting her to speak first, but the blonde sat down again and motioned grandly for Pam to go. Pam cleared her throat.

"First of all, there is a mushroom here, growing in Gotham State Park. Now, I know most of you are oblivious to the wants and needs of the environment, but allowing the city to build over it? Are you really so blind to the needs of our planet, including this endangered species? This extraordinary mushroom has a property that will save lives and all you can think about are new _housing complexes?_ I don't—"

"Hey. Hey, Ivy, let's get to the point. I think there might be some coppers heading our way by now and we don't wanna have to hurt 'em." Harley idly fired her gun into the air a couple of times. Ivy took a deep breath and calmed her voice.

"What is left of the Gotham city council has until midnight tonight to disband its plans for construction on that land. It must then be legally donated to a legitimate environmental agency in such a way that even if I'm arrested, the land will remain protected."

"My turn!" Harley tried to fire the gun again, but when it only clicked, out of bullets, she shrugged and resumed twirling it. "So, I know the Batman and these news guys didn't want to tell ya, but the Joker, Mr. J, got caught by the big black bad guy. Ya see, though, the joke's on them." She stopped swinging the gun around and tipped the camera a huge wink. "You, my fine friends, get to choose. If Mr. J _stays_ locked up… then I'll tell Ivy here not to let a single one of you get the cure. If, however, he was to get _free_ somehow…" she raised both eyebrows and spread her hands innocently, as if to say '_there you have it_.' "_So-o_, just write to your wonderful city rep—um, if you still have one that is—and find my Mr. J! And then, you'll be _laughing_ all the way to the bank."

The camera faded into fuzz and Andi took what felt like her first breath since she had watched the bulletin. Bruce turned towards her. "Well?"

Perhaps she'd breathed too soon. Andi wanted to speak, but her throat kept getting stuck. Maybe that was a good thing. She wasn't quite sure of what to say.

"I'm sorry," she finally whispered.

"You're SORRY? _Sorry?_" Bruce looked to be on the point of losing it completely. "Andi I _trusted_ you. And you just endangered not just you or me, but every citizen in Gotham! What do you think is going to happen out there now? This city is going to be tearing itself apart trying to find the Joker, people are going to be—" He broke off for several long seconds, and when he did speak again his voice was under such tight control Andi was surprised it didn't break.

"Just tell me _why_ you lied."

All the effort trying to justify herself to herself and suddenly the truth floated to the top of Andi's tongue without a pause.

"Because I couldn't betray them, Bruce."

He stared at her as if she'd struck him with a heavy weight. Andi's voice was very small. "I haven't given your secrets to them… but I couldn't give theirs to you either. You entered this war to fight for Gotham, and that's great, but I did it to save them. So when they turned against everything they had once believed in… what could I do Bruce?"

"And look where fighting to for your friends got them!" Bruce snapped, stabbing a finger at the TV. "Well done!"

As if she needed reminding.

Bruce stepped so close to her that Andi had the option of either staring straight at his chest or into his face. After a minute, she chose the latter. "Andi, you can't keep doing this," he finally said. The fury was still in his voice, but so was a complete calmness, as if he'd reached a decision of some kind. "You might have come into this fighting for all sorts of things, but if you're going to be here, if you're going to keep this up, you can only do it for one. Because it's right. This is bigger than me, bigger than you and, yes, bigger than even Pam and Leena.

"So it's your choice. If you walk out of here, you're free to find your friends, to try to get the Joker, to do whatever you damn well please. But if you're going to stay, I want you in. You are going to be dedicated to this mind, body, and soul, and there is no turning back. No more fence-sitting. Do you understand?"

Andi stared at him for a second, then looked away. Bruce's face might have been carved from stone for all the sympathy his look held. His eyes glittered, though, fierce and utterly determined. He meant this. Could she really do what he suggested? Put something else, even Gotham, before her friends? Betray Pam and Leena?

_No. Not Pam and Leena,_ she realized,_ Ivy and Harley. The friends I had are gone._ And without them, was there really anything left that she wasn't willing to give up?

Andi met Bruce's glare and refused to flinch. "I'm in."

* * *

**Author's Note:** So there you have it! The reason why the Joker went down so easily.

To be 100% honest, I'm a bit nervous about how this chapter turned out (there's a big surprise...). _I_ liked it. I figure that with both of her friends turning evil, it makes sense for Andi to at least flirt with the 'dark side.' Despite all her wonderful attributes, she does have her flaws and one of them is that, hyper-rational though she is, she just refuses to see reason when it comes to people she cares about. Hence her running to the top of a skyscraper with absolutely no plan in mind to catch a serial killer. Or going to an abandoned apartment complex to meet an eco-terrorist. Or, in this case, lying to cover the tracks of a pair of murdering maniacs. That's just my take though; I can see why others would disagree.

As y'all may have noticed, this post is a whopping week early! And why is that? Because I'M GETTING PUBLISHED! It's only a short story in one of my college's lit magazines, but it still had me frantically calling everyone I know and screaming at the top of my lungs when I found out. Anyways, as a thank you to all of you amazing reviewers who have helped to whip my writing into shape, I decided to post early. So you guys? All I can say is that y'all don't have the slightest idea how much your thoughts, criticism, and encouragement have meant to me. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU!


	24. Deduction

**Chapter 24:** Deduction

"Is Master Wayne already gone?"

Andi broke away from her notes and nodded to Alfred. The cave was turning gloomy as the last of the sunset faded—even the powerful lighting system couldn't completely dispel it. "He left with the bats."

"As usual." Alfred was carrying another silver pot of coffee, and he refilled Andi's oversized mug. "Did he wear at least wear his gas mask?"

"I talked him into carrying one, but odds are it will stay on the passenger seat of the Tumbler most of the night. He didn't seem to think mortality suited the persona of Batman." Andi didn't want to admit it, but the thought worried her. After today, Bruce was the only friend she still had. The thought of him getting killed off, especially by Pam's disease…

Alfred took a seat across from her. "And how are you doing?"

"Doing? Horribly." Andi hefted the stack of file papers she'd been flipping through. Useless, trivial information that barely deserved the name of forensics. "I've tried everything Alfred. Bruce risked infection to go back to that apartment with me for forensic evidence, we tried their old homes, anyone they might have contacted… I've watched the footage from that studio so many times I've gone numb to the sight of _my friends_ becoming murderers! And for all that, there's _still_ no clue as to where they've gone. I'm getting _nothing_, Alfred. _Nothing!_"

"That wasn't what I meant, Miss. I asked how _you_ are doing, not the investigation."

Andi ran a hand through her loose hair. She'd done that so often in the past three hours that it stayed where it was, pulled back from her face. "I try not to think about it," she admitted, "But whenever there's a pause, whenever I'm not focused on forensics or things I just… I can't get it out of my head Alfred. I thought I knew them. I _did_ know them. They were such good people. And then…"

Alfred covered her hand with his soft, gentle one. Andi didn't want to admit it, but it felt good, almost cathartic, to admit to what she felt. Bruce had been perfectly polite, but distant and cold all day. Trying to find sympathy from him would have been like trying to pull water from a rock, especially after lying to him earlier. And besides, even if he didn't push her away, Andi couldn't allow herself to cry on his shoulder. She knew exactly what that would lead to if she let it, and that was just another added mess to the whole tangle. As if things weren't complicated enough.

"That's not even the worst of it," she muttered after a moment, "The worst part is that I still understand them. Part of me even agrees with their actions. It keeps saying that if I tracked them down, if I found them, I could join up and it'd be just the three of us against the world. Like it's been since college. Why them? Why them and not me? And why do I feel like _I'm_ the one disappointing _them_ of all things?"

Alfred turned a considering look to her pages of files of gun ownership records, apartment leases, and electricity bills. "Perhaps, Miss, you are barking up the wrong tree."

"What do you mean?"

"You are trying to solve this case as a scientist. But a forensic scientist really only tries to analyze empirical data and facts. If I may suggest, this case simply seems to require a different touch to me."

Andi cocked her head, confusion written all over her face. Alfred sighed and clarified.

"That of a friend. You know these women better than anyone. You just told me that you understand them, that you still feel you are one of them. If you are capable of that, it seems to me that you may also be capable of understanding what they are doing now and perhaps what they _will_ do next. Don't think of them as suspects to be analyzed. Consider them as you naturally want to. As people. Friends even. How would Doctors Isley and Quinzel go about this?"

Andi closed her eyes and tried to imagine it. Pam. Leena. She knew the way they interacted. All she had to do was apply it to the situation.

"Pam will take charge," she said thoughtfully. "She's the mastermind behind this and… she's also the more forceful of the two. More focused on what she wants and how she'll get it. Whereas in the state Leena's at… I think without Pam's guidance, she might forget the entire thing and begin dancing around, terrorizing downtown or something to try to get the Joker free. Her mind's just… collapsed. It can't hold onto anything for long."

She looked up to see Alfred watching her closely. "Sorry. I can't seem to think of them as Harley and Ivy."

"Of course, Miss. Name them in whatever manner helps you best." Alfred refilled her coffee cup—when had she finished the one before it?—and Andi drank deeply before stilling, plunging her mind back into the puzzle. It was as if she submerged her own consciousness into trying to understand. Diving so deep into herself that she was almost comatose, feeling her way in the dark.

"So… where would Pam go?" It was easier to speak the questions. Things unraveled faster. "She's practical. She'd want somewhere that she could develop the toxin and antidote. But all the main research labs are in use, and her workplace is destroyed. She'd also want somewhere she knew, a familiar territory. She's been a vagabond so long, she needs a sort of home plate now, and she'll gravitate towards somewhere that she associates with safety. A secure, probably significant place with access to scientific equipment…"

Where were the places Pam considered safe? Her current apartment? Too obvious, and Bruce and she'd checked already. Her childhood home? No. Pam had fallen out badly with her parents after Ivy's death, and the couple had since divorced. The mother had gotten the house, but lost it a few years later trying to cover gambling debts, and now lived in a shoddy apartment near the Narrows from what Andi understood. Her father had relocated to New York where he'd married a much younger woman and become a successful businessman. Pam wouldn't have gone to either of them for help. Where else had she been? Where had she lived where she was truly happy?

"GSU."

"What was that, Miss Andi?"

"Gotham State University." Andi jumped up from her chair and began to pace, suddenly filled with coiled energy. "Think, Alfred, it's perfect! The campus closed down the minute the Joker got out, there are research labs and all sorts of other facilities, and it's somewhere she knows. Pam probably even engineered the bacteria there, has likely been using it as her true hideout the minute she left the Feds."

"Will she still be there you think?"

Andi thought for a minute. "Yes," she decided. "She needs some place to start mass producing the antidote. She didn't expect the toxin to spread, so she'll need to make more medicine to supply the city with. And she has no way of knowing we found out about it, so she wouldn't see a need to move."

Alfred nodded slowly. "Well then," he asked, still keeping to his Socratic questions, "What do you think we should do about it?"

_Pam. Leena. No, I made my choice, I know what I have to do_. Andi stood up. "You call Bruce. Tell him what we've figured out and get him over there."

"And where will you be in the meanwhile Miss Andi?"

Andi gave a slight grin. "Heading out to meet him. I intend to already be on the road by the time you tell him that though."

She braced herself for his protests, but after a minute of considering, Alfred merely pulled out his phone. "You'd better hurry then."

"Thanks Alfred!" Andi stooped to plant a swift kiss on his cheek before racing out of the cavern and into the Manor. She pulled up short inside the vast garage, looking speculatively at Bruce's luxury and sports cars, her battered old Altima parked to one side, like a donkey stabled with a dozen thoroughbreds. She _did _need to hurry. And her own car would really be too slow and vulnerable on the streets… Andi turned to the long row of keys hung on different hooks. Lamborghini, Ferrari, or Jaguar?

* * *

"Just tell me where you are!" Bruce wanted to shout at Andi through the radio, but he made himself keep his gruff, disguising tone. Losing his temper wouldn't get him anywhere with her.

"I can't." Andi's voice was as calm as if he was a child demanding to know what she had bought him for his birthday. That did nothing to calm him down. "The moment I do, you'll come knock me out again and leave me in the bushes until this is all over."

"Damn right I will." Bruce _felt_ his pulse skyrocketing, and if they'd been using a cellphone instead of the radio in his ear, it would have been crumpled to pieces in his fist by now. "You're not needed here—"

"Look, this is a big campus and the two of us can cover it separately in much less time than you alone. And," her tone turned steely, "I meant it when I agreed to see this through. I'm not sitting out. Now. Are you at the chemistry building yet?"

There was _no_ arguing with this woman! If she survived this, Bruce was going to kill her. "Yes."

"Good. I'm at my destination too. Stay quiet, call me if you find anything, and I'll do the same for you, alright? Labs are on the third floor, but glance through the others too."

Bruce growled several curse words in Chinese, but the line was already dead. Moving quickly, he set his handheld computer to hack into the building's security system, slipped inside and through the hallways. He didn't think he wanted to know how Andi was breaking into the computerized locks. Third floor. He moved to the maintenance stairs, still illuminated with the emergency lights, and climbed up.

The labs were closed, the place only dimly illuminated by streetlights shining through the windows and the red glow of the EXIT signs. Bruce's cape billowed behind him as he swept through, scanning for something, anything, that seemed out of place, drawers open, broken equipment… Everything was neat and orderly, and he eventually worked his way down to the lower floors, checking through offices, classrooms, and—

The radio burst into static, then Andi's voice came on in a whisper.

"I've found it! Pam's lab. Greenhouses, left corner close to the door."

"Any sign of them?" Greenhouses, where were the greenhouses? Across the campus, of course. Bruce forced a window open and leapt out, sprinting the minute his feet touched the ground.

"No. Just the equipment and medicines."

"Stay hidden, if they catch you there, it'll be a hostage situation, and I don't—"

"And there may also be a cache of the antidote that they'll destroy once they know we're here. I'm going to check it out."

"Andi—"

She hissed at him to be quiet and for several seconds there was no sound but the clinking of glass instruments on her end. Bruce concentrated on breathing, legs moving fast enough that he almost flew over the ground towards her.

"Oh no."

"What is it?" Bruce leapt over a low wall, charged through beds of flowers. "What did you find?"

"There's… there's a whole bunch of the mushrooms here. And from what I can tell… Pam's been extracting stuff from them. Using them. They're the cure. That enzyme in them, that's what stops the exotoxin—I'm so stupid, she told me it could break down toxins when we first started arguing! She's essentially guaranteed their survival now that they're needed to fight a disease. And she must have been making the medicine, because there are a whole bunch of syringes and bottles for it here. But…"

"But what? Andi _what?"_

"She's got two piles."

"So?"

"So why would she have only two piles if all she'd collected was the antidote? And now that she's changed sides she must be planning to make more of the toxin/bacteria cocktail at some point… Don't you see, she's got both the poison and the cure here and _I don't know which one's which!"_

"Is there any way to tell?"

"Not without testing or… oh gosh what am I supposed to do?"

"Alright. Stay calm; I'm in sight of the greenhouse, I'll be there in a minute." Bruce's eyes caught on something. Red. Something red was moving inside the greenhouse and it felt like his stomach disappeared as he ran. Too far. He was too far, running, running for her life, running out of time just like he had with Rachel. _"IVY'S IN THE GREENHOUSE! ANDI GET OUT OF THERE!"_

The terrified shriek reached him through the radio and his own ears together.

"ANDI!"

He burst through the glass.

* * *

Red hair filled Andi's vision, her mouth, surrounded her. She tried to wriggle out, but Pam was having none of it, pinning her to the ground. After a second she pulled out a gun. "Don't make me hurt you Andi. I won't kill you but if I have to take out your shoulder—"

The Batman burst through the glass wall, pushed Pam off. A shot fired into the air and then the pair was rolling, rolling over and over, Bruce somehow wrenching the gun away, lost in the rows of dark plants. Pam struggled and fought, but Batman was about a hundred pounds heaver, wearing full body armor, and much better trained. In seconds she was laid flat on the ground, Bruce efficiently dealing out blows to the solar plexus, face, head—

"LOOK OUT!"

A terra cotta pot large enough for a child to fit in hurled down at Bruce from the balcony above them. Even in his helmet, Batman was knocked flat, stunned. Pam wriggled out, and whatever entranced Andi broke. The gun, get to the gun, if she could just find it first…

Pam grabbed her ankle as she passed, yanked Andi to her knees. Andi flipped herself over and grabbed her face, fingers moving for the eyes, but Pam punched her square in the nose, the jaw, and then rammed her knee into Andi's stomach. Andi doubled over, and two seconds later there was the sound of a gun cocking above her. Pam looked down at her, her hands completely steady. There was a giggle from across the room.

"You never _do_ learn to watch your back with me around do you?"

Harley was looking straight at Bruce as she said it, her hands moving quickly over the work desk, filling a needle with the left pile's chemicals. Andi felt absolute horror form in her stomach. "No! Oh, God, Leena _don't!"_ _C'mon, come on Bruce, move, just once please._ He didn't though. Couldn't. Andi tried to jump up, but Pam swung her foot straight into her stomach and then pushed her onto her back, planted a boot on Andi's chest. She gulped air desperately. "Please, Leena, please, anything you want, just don't TOUCH HIM!"

Leena squirted the air bubble out of the top of the syringe and waggled her eyebrows at Andi. "Anything?"

"Yes, yes, just let him alone and—"

"Nah. I think I like _this_ idea better!" Leena leapt forward, tugged the thick padding around Bruce's throat away and the needle darted into the skin beneath. Andi saw her thumb move down on the syringe, the chemical go in, and then Leena leapt back and Bruce gave a jerk as the pain started to take hold of his system.

_Well. At least I know which one's the toxin now_, some cold, rational part of her mind commented. Most of her was past even noticing. Andi shrieked and Pam dug her foot in a little harder. Harley held up a finger as if a bright idea had just occurred to her.

"_I_ know why you're so upset! It's 'cause you _love_ him isn't it?" She hopped up and down, clapping her hands. "You do, you do, you do! How swee-eet."

Andi stared at Bruce. He was coming back to consciousness now, his body laying very still as the pain in the toxin set to work. She knew what it was like, knew the effort it must be costing him to remain still and silent. _I'll get you out of this_, she promised, _Somehow, you're getting out of this_.

"Sure. Yeah, whatever," she agreed aloud.

"Nah-ah. Say it like you _mean it_."

His breathing was harsh and labored, his head tipped back, every muscle tight as if he could fight away the pain. Andi closed her eyes, tried not to think about the fire flooding his veins. Her fault. Batman. No, Bruce. The one person who hadn't left her or betrayed her. And she'd dragged him into this. "Yes. I mean it."

"We-ell. That's _quite_ a coincidence. 'Cause you see…" Harley put her hand in front of her mouth and stage whispered, _"I_ love someone _too_. And my Mr. J's in trouble just like Batsy."

Andi darted a glance up at Pam. "You can't be helping her in this can you? This man is abusing her, drove her crazy, you can't want me to…" Pam's green eyes were as hard as death.

"So I'll tell you _what_," Harley continued blithely, now skipping around the rows of plants, her boots making loud stomping noises. "I'll make you a _deal_. _I _give Batsy the cure once _you_ set Mr. J free."

"Andi… don't do it… you've got to…" Bruce drew in a pained breath and subsided. Andi was shocked he could even tell what the conversation was, disoriented and pain-ridden as he must be.

"If I don't, the Joker will just break free sooner or later…" Andi said slowly. "And you'll be dead. There will be no one left to take him down. We need you. We need you alive more than we need him locked up."

Leena clapped her hands again. "_That's_ the spirit Andi! I _knew_ you had it in ya! So what do ya say?"

What was she becoming? What was right anymore, what was wrong? Andi couldn't tell, all she knew was that with every breath Bruce was going deeper and deeper into pain, that this had to end somewhere, that she couldn't do this, couldn't condemn the last person she loved…

"I'm in."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Ah well. Andi's _trying_ to be good this time. And, yes, the parallels between this ending and last chapter's are intentional.

Wow, it feels really weird to realize that there's only about two more chapters left and the epilogue! But we're almost there! I'm going to try and include the last of the author's notes here, actually, because I don't want these to interfere with the endings of the other chapters which are trying to conclude the story itself.

The first and most obvious question: will there be a sequel? I'll be honest here. I've tried thinking of one, even started writing it, but it didn't working right and I had to scrap the thing. I have ideas, but I want to work on my _Hunger Games_ piece first, and will have to see after that. I am definitely coming back to this at some point, but I need a break from this set of characters or I'm going to be too close to them for the whole thing to work. I started posting this in August of last year (wow, has it been that long already?), and if you come back around the same time next year, I think it'll be ready by then. Think, mind you, no guarantees becuase I, personally, have doubts on whether I can think at all.

A second quick note, this one on review responses. I always pride myself on keeping up with these, but if I've somehow missed you at any point, drop me a note! And, for any of you reviewers, if you post something Dark Knight related, please tell me because I want to read it. Just so y'all know, though, there WON'T be review responses to the chapter after this one. I'm heading into finals week and such at that point, and I figure if you guys are faced with the options of a response or a post you'll go with that latter.

And finally, the last set of thank-yous to the reviewers. What can I say? It's a conundrum. You reviewers obviously like my story/writing, which means you must think I'm fairly good at expressing myself. But when it comes time to thank y'all, I can't figure out how to say it... proving that I'm not nearly as good at the job as you guys seem to think! All I can say is thank you guys so-o-o much.

Oh, and Happy almost-Easter everyone!


	25. Betrayal

**Chapter 25:** Betrayal

"Do you think you can remember the layout or do you want me to draw it out?" For once Leena's voice was completely serious.

"I _have_ visited Arkham before, Leena. I've got it. You're going to have to hope they're keeping the Joker in the solitary ward like you're predicting, though. If it was too badly damaged in the explosion or I can't find him, this isn't going to get far. And I'll still need a policeman to get me past security." Andi hesitated, then decided it wouldn't do any harm to ask.

"I need a gun."

"Hmmm… lemme think… no." Harley twirled her pistol like a pro, even though Andi knew she probably hadn't so much as touched a gun before the Joker had broken her. "I don't wanna give you any chance to hurt J. Sorry, darlin'."

"Look, if I hurt 'J' before I got back here, you simply wouldn't have to give the Batman a cure! I'm not going to touch him, but he'll be protected by the police and if you want me to get in, you've got to give me _something._"

The pistol stopped its spinning and Leena tapped her chin thoughtfully with the barrel. Ivy's foot slowly came off Andi's chest, allowing her to sit up, but the scientist's hands remained firm on her weapon and she watched Andi closely. "And what's to stop you from shooting us as soon as you have the gun? You could just do that and then give your friend the antidote. No thanks."

"I wouldn't shoot—"

"Not to kill, maybe, but if you had to, you'd put a bullet through our knees or something," Pam shrugged. "I don't hold it against you Andi. I'll do the same to you if I have to, it's nothing personal."

Andi sighed. It had been a long shot anyways. No pun intended. She cleared her throat.

"How do I know you two are going to keep your word?"

Pam's lip curled into a grim smile. "Don't trust us anymore?"

"No."

"I'll just tell it like it is then." Ivy looked Andi straight in the eye. "There's nothing I can do to prove that I'm trustworthy. You and I both know that. And he's not my friend like you or Harley, so there's no particular reason I want him alive. But you like him, Andi. And if he's that important to you—"

"He is."

"Then I'm willing to help him for you. I'll give him the cure if you do what Harley wants. I swear."

Andi just stared, as if she could pull the answers from her friend's eyes if she looked hard enough. After a minute, Pam shrugged. "Take it or leave it, Andi. But just remember one thing: you and I might be on different sides now, but even so, have I ever lied? To you or to anyone else?"

Andi grimaced. They both knew the answer to that; Pam had always been the brutally honest one of the trio, outspoken to a fault. She looked up to Leena, who was sitting on a lab table now, swinging her legs back and forth. "And you, Leena? Why should I trust you?"

"Hey, I don't want him dead! Mr. J likes having Bats around to play with." Harley gave an exaggerated shrug, then swooped her arm up and over her head to look at her watch. "Speaking of which, you should do this soon if you're gonna do it at all. I don't know how much time Batsy here's got left."

"What do you mean 'how much time?' Those council members are still alive and they've had the toxin in them almost twenty-four hours now!"

"We-ell," Leena bit her lip like a guilty child, "I mighta given him a bit of an overkill on it."

Andi closed her eyes, then opened them to glare at Pam. "You've concentrated the toxin? Are you out of your _mind?"_

"The anti-toxin will work just as well on it," Ivy said. "As long as it's administered regularly to a person, you just have to wait for the bacteria to get taken out by the immune system. This dosage just acts quicker. It's more of a weapon this way; unless someone can get the cure within three hours, they'll be damaged for life. Four and they're dead. This way, if I ever need to actually kill someone in the future, once the antitoxin is out there, I'll have this available."

"_Future?_ As in you're not going to stop with _this_? What is your—"

"Tick-tock-tick-tock," Leena chanted, "I'd say Batsy's already had this in his system for fifteen minutes. That's a twelfth of your time right there! Hurry up!"

Andi stared at the needles, an idea flashing into her mind, another piece of the puzzle snapping into place. "Let me have a dose of the poison then. You say it'll make a good weapon, and you two must have inoculated yourselves by now, so I can't turn it against you."

Ivy stared at her disbelievingly. "Ten seconds ago you were high and mighty about these, and now you want me to give you one? What gives?"

"I figure…" Andi sighed, tried to quiet her conscience. She had to do something. "I figure you're going to be distributing the cure soon anyways. And I've got to do this. I can't allow myself to be stopped, no matter the cost."

Ivy and Harley exchanged glances. After a minute, Harley shrugged. "It's your medicine Red. But I want Mr. J back soon."

"Fair enough." Pam turned her back on Andi, holstering the gun. Andi wanted to take the chance to go to Bruce, attack Pam, _something,_ but Harley started pointing her gun at random things and making shooting noises like a kid with a toy. Andi got the message and stayed still.

"Alright, Andi. Here you go." Pam handed Andi a disposable needle, rather like those carried by diabetics. "I don't think you need to learn how to handle these?"

Andi rolled her eyes. "Med student over here? I could give _you_ lessons."

Ivy grinned and Harley gave Andi a wink. And somehow, despite the crazy make-up, despite Bruce on the floor and Andi about to jump from citizen to criminal, she suddenly felt as if things hadn't changed a bit, as if everything was _right_. The three of them setting off to try something insane and world-changing. No different from any other day when you thought about it.

Then Pam reached a hand down to help Andi up and it all came crashing back. No different. Right. _Everything_ was different. It was all wrong. Pam and Ivy, Harley and Leena. Were they the strangers or was she?

"Hey. Good luck," Pam said. "I mean it Andi. I don't want you or him hurt."

Deep breath. Was it still possible to _like_ Pam? Was it possible _not_ to? "Thanks," Andi muttered. She cast a final look around the room, at Bruce on the floor, at Harley carefully removing a glove and cleaning her nails, at Pam's serious expression. _I can do this_, she promised, _I WILL do this_._ Somehow._

Andi made her steps calm, almost sauntering, as she walked out of the greenhouse.

* * *

"Miss, this a secure area that needs authorization to be accessed—"

"It's alright, it's alright Harris! I know who this is, let her in." Gordon motioned the other police officer aside and ushered Andi into the back exit of Arkham Asylum. He placed a protective hand on Andi's shoulder and led her down the hallway. "Sorry about that," he muttered as soon as they were out of earshot of the door, "When I got your phone message I assumed you'd be at the _front_ of the building."

"That was the original plan," Andi said, "But security was so tight there I figured I might have more luck in the employee entrance. Do you have a place we can talk? Privately?"

Gordon gave her a considering look. "This way."

Andi had visited Arkham several times with Leena, and had always thought it wasn't nearly as grim as legend made it. Now, though, it was not only grim, it was positively menacing. The dingy fluorescent light made everything seem harsh, too clear-cut, yet somehow left the impression that there were shadows to hide in. No windows, no color, nothing but rows of thick metal doors with who knew what behind them. _Just my imagination. This area isn't even used for the dangerous inmates_. Andi reminded herself. "The doctors?"

"Most of them never came into work today—Dr. Arkham has the place running on minimal staff. A couple are sticking around for the patients, but the less here, the less people we have in danger. And the less chance one is being paid or bribed into helping the Joker out. They let me have one of the empty offices too."

_The Joker doesn't need a doctor to help him. He's got me._ Andi spotted yet another policeman at the intersection of two hallways. More who were patrolling, two at each corner… they went up a flight of stairs, to the offices, and even then there was a jumpy looking policeman that Andi didn't recognize. "Security's pretty tight, huh?"

"As tight as we can make it without tipping off the public," Gordon said with quiet pride. "It helps that no one knows the Joker's here except those we needed to tell. I've had plainclothes on the streets all day hinting that he's at Williams Medical. They've got a riot going on over there but we're safe here. For now. It'll get out eventually, but all we've had to deal with were maybe half a dozen people who even suspected." He stopped at one of the offices and unlocked it, ushered Andi towards one of the chairs.

The occupant had obviously _tried_ to improve the room with potted plants and pictures of family, but to Andi it still seemed enclosed and stifling, a dim, dirty prison. She perched on the edge of her chair and had to focus on making her hands stay still.

"Gordon, I'm here as a favor to our… mutual friend. He couldn't exactly waltz in here himself, so he asked me to come. He—he wants me to tell you that he's got a plan."

"Good." Gordon pulled off his glasses and started polishing them on his shirt. "Because I sure as hell could use some support in this."

"Well… there's a catch. His plan involves… letting the Joker loose."

"What?" Her boss jammed the glasses back onto his face and stared fiercely at her. "Taylor you can't be serious! He's _never_ given in to terrorist demands, he wouldn't start now with—"

"It's what he needs Gordon. The situation's under control, but I need you to trust him. He wants you to give me the pass number to the Joker's cell and let me get him loose."

"I…" Gordon paused and Andi felt her heart lift, but then he shook his head. "No. No, Taylor. Tell him if he wants to break the Joker out he'd better do it on his own because I am _not_ going to back down on this."

Andi saw the glint in Gordon's eye and swallowed. That was it then. She took a deep breath, tried to hold back the emotional roller coaster her mind was riding, but something must have shown in her expression because Gordon cleared his throat. "It's alright, Taylor. I'm sure he'll understand." His chair scraped back from the desk and he came around to pat her awkwardly on the back. "Come on. I'll escort you out and…"

She saw the opportunity before she processed it. She had a weapon. Gordon was in arm's reach. Bruce needed her. Andi's arm seemed to jerk with its own life, fingers slipping the needle cap free, twisting behind her to slap it into the large vein on the back of Gordon's hand. Her thumb moved on the syringe cap.

He stared at her for perhaps five seconds, then hunched over his hand, gasping. Andi wondered whose gaze showed more horror. His or hers. She had an agenda though, and she made herself react first. She turned around, seized Gordon's gun and radio, stuffed the gun into her belt behind her jeans, and shrieked. She yanked the door open and shouted, "Get in here! Quick!"

"Miss? What is it?" The officer had his weapon drawn, but lowered it when he saw it was just the two of them.

"Gordon! He's got the disease. At least I think he does, he just started doubling over and—" Andi didn't need to fake the near panic in her voice. She needed to get a grip on things, but her mind kept seeing that needle going in, and Gordon had sunk to the floor now, glasses askew, and she couldn't make herself calm down. One chance. She had to do this right. One chance. She'd gone too far to back out.

"Alright, Miss, it's alright. Just let me look at him." The officer stepped into the room, holstered his weapon. The second he'd shut the door, Andi whipped Gordon's gun out and pointed it straight at the man.

"Don't even think about going for it," she hissed as the officer darted a glance at his own pistol, "I want your hands on your head."

The policeman's eyes went wide but he obeyed slowly. Andi kept the gun leveled at his face.

"Taylor…" Gordon swallowed past the pain and Andi felt bile rising in her throat. _Don't think about it, don't think about it…_ "What are you doing?"

"Whatever I have to." Andi was shocked at how steady her voice was, how her hands didn't tremble on the weapon. Did that make her more or less of a monster? "Tell me how to get to the Joker's cell Gordon. Give it now, or your officer gets a hero's medal for being shot in the line of duty."

Maybe Gordon wouldn't have said anything under normal circumstances, Andi didn't know, but he was bewildered, pain ridden, and one of his men was being threatened by a gun. He closed his eyes and slowly recited "Men's ward. Room 302."

"You're a terrible liar." Andi cocked the pistol. "The real location this time."

Gordon groaned, and Andi could sense more than see the fight go out of him. It was everything she could do not to tell him the truth, why she was doing it, what was really happening, but there was no time and she didn't know that he'd help her anyways. "Solitary confinement. Floor six, room fifteen."

"And the code to his room?"

"18-73-90."

Andi whispered the number sets to herself, then cleared her throat. "Turn around," she instructed the officer. He hesitated, but when Andi narrowed her eyes and clenched the pistol tighter he obeyed. Andi flipped the gun around and, hands gripping it like an axe, hoping the gun didn't discharge in her face, brought the handle crashing into his occipital ridge. The officer's legs limpened and he crashed to the ground, bashing his chin bloody as he did. Andi pulled his gun, radio, badge, and taser off of him, then checked for a pulse. Faint, but still there. He'd live, but she needed a disguise if she was trying to walk anywhere in here without Gordon.

With a sigh, she heaved him over and began undoing the buttons on his shirt. Modesty seemed rather pointless with everything else that was happening. Her main concern was the time it was taking and that the clothes were too baggy and long on her. That might clue someone in. She adjusted as best she could, cuffed the man to the leg of the desk, then turned to go.

"Andi…" Gordon moaned, barely lucid at this point. "_Why_?"

The same question she'd asked Pam when she'd been left in the apartment, incapacitated by pain. Andi gritted her teeth. "I don't know," she muttered, hating herself, "I don't know."

She pulled the door open. "You'd better have told the truth Gordon. Otherwise I'll come back here and get it out of you more painfully. This officer was the only one in earshot and I doubt you'll have much luck trying to move with that in your system. Believe me, I know what it feels like."

* * *

There weren't any guards actually inside the hallways of the isolation ward. The lack was eerie after the huge numbers outside, but considering the legends floating around the police station about the Joker's escape from MCU by taunting Detective Stevens, Andi supposed Gordon didn't want to allow him near any of the officers. An obvious overcorrection given what she was about to do.

Andi was glad though. She'd wasted enough time talking her way past the two guards on the doorway outside the hall, and it was really only a matter of time before Gordon and the other officer were found. And her nerves were on the verge of shattering. All she could tell herself was to keep moving, to not look back, because if she did, if she thought about the trail of bodies she was leaving, Bruce and Gordon and that other policeman…

The Joker's room was the only one occupied, dead in the middle of the hall. Andi crossed to it, stiffening her fingers to keep them from shaking as she punched in the number. Eighteen… seventy-three… ninety.

The door buzzed, then clunked open and something leapt at her. Andi slammed into the wall, the Joker pinning her wrists before she could move for her guns, grinning down at her. "Took ya long enough. I was expecting Harley though."

Andi's panic disappeared as she stared up at his insane, mud colored eyes. This man, this _bastard_, had hurt her friend, broken her mind, turned Leena into Harley, a parody of the woman she'd once been.

She'd kill him. She'd turn the tables and she'd make sure he—

_'Don't let him do this to you.'_ Bruce's voice was like a breath of chilled air on the back of her neck. Andi shuddered, and suddenly she was back in control. Absolute and utter control. She knew what she had to do. "Harley sent me. She's waiting for you and I can take you to her."

"Hnn. Why should I care?" Utterly disdaining her weapons, the Joker turned his back on Andi and strolled towards the door. Andi had to run and grab him by the arm to keep him from going too far, in sight of the little window at the hall door, and he turned to her with a smirk. "Well? Ya gotta do better than that if you want me to come. Why should I go find Harl when she couldn't even come find _me?_"

She had to get the Joker back to the greenhouse. And Harley wasn't interesting enough. Andi could think of only one other person who was. The words slipped from her mouth before she quite thought them through. "Because she's with the Batman."

_That_ got his attention. Of course it did. She saw the way he edged his tongue along the back of his scars, pursed his lips. "The Ba_t_-man?"

"You need me to get to him though." Andi steeled her spine and met his eyes. She _refused_ to show fear in front of this creature. "So you'd better have a good idea for getting us out of here because I've used up all my ingenuity getting you out of that cell."

"Really?" The Joker seemed delighted. "How, uh, _sweet_. But ya know it wasn't really _worth_ all the trouble."

"Why n—"

The explosion knocked Andi onto her face, blew all sound from her ears. Her body tensed, fingers digging into the concrete, screaming without sound as the ground, the walls, the air shook. And then everything was still.

She raised her head and, when nothing else detonated, tried to assess herself. Nothing felt more than bruised and she didn't think she'd hit her head, but there was a ringing in her ears so loud that she couldn't hear anything else. She pushed herself up, blessedly not dizzy, to see the Joker leaping and dancing as chunks of ceiling continued to patter down on him like stone rain.

He turned to her, mouthed "C'mon," and when Andi didn't move, caught her by the sleeve and dragged her towards the door.

* * *

**Author's Note:** Hey y'all, I know I said last chapter's was the last note, but this is just a quick notice to say that I've set up a fictionpress account for the short story I wrote and it should be up in two days once the mandatory 'wait period' is over. I'd love to have your thoughts on it when it's up! The style's a little/lot different from my long stories (snark and humor instead of... well, this), but I'M proud of it. The link is in my profile and my username's the same.

Also, Go Spurs Go! You can beat them Grizzlies! EDIT: Um... turns out you can't. Wow. Never thought things would get so bad I'd have to cheer for the Mavs...


	26. Reversal

**Author's Note:** Sorry, y'all. This really is the last of these notes, I promise! Just saying that after a lot of delays/procrastination on my part my short story is up, so give it a look if you're interested. Link's on my profile. And, also, that I will be responding to last post's reviews, but figured you guys would rather get the post a day early first. Enjoy.

* * *

**Chapter 26:** Reversal

"MR. J!"

Leena's shriek was so loud that even Andi's sore ears didn't have any trouble hearing her. She leapt at him, clinging like a spider monkey, arms around his neck, legs around his waist. "Mr. J, I was so worried about you, all those nasty policemen and mean people, but you got out, I sent Andi out to get you and Ivy helped and _Mr. J I've got the Batman!"_

The Joker bent his face towards Leena and waggled his eyebrows, whispered something Andi couldn't hear. Whatever it was, it made her giggle and snuggle into his chest like a child… or a lover. "I knew you'd be proud of me."

Bruce was lying still now. So still. It had been an hour and forty-five minutes. Andi tried to step around the intertwined couple to get to the work table, but the Joker flung out an arm to stop her, staring avidly at the Batman. "Yesssss…" he hissed, moving towards him, Leena still stuck to his chest. "Oh, little Harley…"

Suddenly Leena fell off of him as he sprang forward, kicks landing hard in Bruce's chin, his ribs, stomach. Even with the body armor, he'd still be feeling those. Laughter, wild, jarring, insane as he pummeled Bruce, hit him again and again and _again_. Andi sprang at him, panicked, unthinking, only for someone to tackle her from the blind side, shove her to the floor.

Pam yanked Andi up, seized her around the waist, and hoisted her to the wall of the greenhouse. She ignored Andi's struggles like she would those of a child. "Don't be a fool," she whispered in Andi's ear. "You try to interfere with this maniac and he'll kill you."

"No, _NO! _You promised, Pam, you _promised_." Andi's self control, hanging by a thread all night, broke apart and she thrashed like a wild thing in Pam's arms. "The medicine, Pam, you don't understand, I have to get to it. _PAM!_"

Harley heard them, looked up at them from where she'd been dropped on the floor and covered her mouth with both hands, eyes round as dinner plates. "Oh goodness, Mr. J, you need your medicine! You've _gotta_ take it Mr. J or you might get _really_ sick!"

She leapt up from the concrete and sprinted to the lab table, filled another needle with clear liquid, then approached the madman. She tried to roll up the Joker's sleeve, but he dealt her an almost casual blow to the face. She didn't even get a second glance as she tumbled to the floor, the glass syringe somehow still intact, while he kept kicking and kicking and _kicking_ Bruce.

It would have been comical if it wasn't so sick, him intent on the Batman, Harley intent on him, and the way he tottered around, now jumping and bouncing on Bruce's limp body, exultant, powerful, a heathen god of fire and laughter. Andi shrieked wordlessly and, as he punched Harley in the stomach, she saw a snarl cross Ivy's face too. She might be corrupt and broken, but she was still Leena's friend. She didn't like the Joker hurting her any better than Andi did.

And suddenly she knew what to do.

Andi broke a hand loose, tangled it in Pam's red hair, and yanked the other woman around to face her. Had to figure out a way, so damn close—

"Pam, Pam listen to me!" This could work, it would work. "I know you don't like the side I've chosen, but you've got to let me stop him."

"Why? He's who Harley wants…" But as Leena hopped back up and tried to chase after the Joker again, only to be slapped away, Pam faltered and stopped, looked uncertain for the barest second. Andi seized on the chance.

"He'll kill her, Pam. He already broken our best friend, and now he'll kill her eventually—maybe by accident, maybe just when he gets tired of her, maybe when she does something to tick him off. Pam, I know you're still in there, I know you're not completely Ivy. Let me go, let me help her. Pretend I escaped, shoot me later if you want, just _let me save them_."

Ivy stared at her for an eternal second, and Andi thought she saw something of her friend flicker again in the depths of the terrorist's feral green eyes. She had to stop this, this had to end. _Pam, please._

Her hold loosened. "Run," Pam whispered. "And kill that bastard."

She broke free just as Harley took a running leap and piggy-backed onto the Joker, needle in hand. He thrashed, reached up both hands to pull her off as if removing a shirt, but her fingers were fast and nimble. The needle flashed in and out of his neck and, at the same instant as she dropped five feet to land flat on her back, the Joker started to laugh hysterically, fingering the small drop of blood on his neck.

Andi ran. Harley shrieked and jumped up, fists raised, ready to fight if Andi came anywhere near them, but Andi didn't. She dashed away from them all, towards the lab table, shoved her hands underneath and, with a rush of adrenaline she'd thought long since burned out of her system, upended the entire thing.

Glass bottles of poisons and cures and lab equipment crashed and banged like a musical explosion, smashed into one congealed mess on the floor. Andi darted around, stomping hard on the shards, making sure that not a single piece of the thicker glassware had escaped destruction, then turned around, glaring, hands clenched at her side. For a second everyone, even the Joker and Bruce, stared at the mess. The Joker's laughter trailed off into snickers, and the sudden quiet made every bit of exhaustion and pain rush back at her. Cold sweat pooled in the crevices of her palms and Andi leaned forward, hands on her knees, trying not to be sick. _Done._

Then Harley began to laugh.

"All that work to protect your sweetheart and you destroyed his cure, Ands? You _destroyed his cure?_ I think you're as crazy as me'n'Ivy now!" Her hysterical laughter lasted for almost a minute and only stopped when the chemicals finally affected the Joker enough that he collapsed to the ground, still whimpering giggles, biting his lip strangely as if trying to hold them back. Andi focused on her breathing, on trying to calm herself, still hunched over. She wiped her forehead and realized that, for the first time in this hellish night, her hands were shaking.

"Harley, I've got a joke to tell you."

"Great!" Leena chirped, perching on a potted plant and still grinning wildly.

"I don't think you'll be happy to hear it."

"Ha!"

Andi sighed. "You didn't give the Joker the antidote."

There was silence for several seconds. Andi saw Pam's eyes widen, but Leena just cocked her head quizzically, then shook her head. "I'll give ya points for sarcasm, Ands, but if you want a good punch line you need a decent set up too."

"Alright. How's this for a set up?" Andi took a deep breath. "When I came into the greenhouse, I couldn't figure out what was the poison what was the antidote. And then I realized… I didn't need to. I pretended to be panicked and scared and lured the Batman in to rescue me. And I let you inject him, watched which pile you chose from so that I could tell how you'd sorted the poisons and antidotes. But what you didn't know… are you ready for the punch line?"

"Hit me with it!"

"It wasn't the poison that you injected him with."

The room went dead quiet, this pause even longer than the last one. "What do you mean?" Leena was looking distinctly uneasy now, and the grin on her face seemed to be plastered there rather than genuine. "You said you didn't even know which pile was which. So how could you have stopped me from choosing the poison?"

"I switched them."

"You _what?_"

"I switched them. The piles. I didn't know which was which, so I just exchanged both sets and let you do it yourself. You attacked the Batman with the _antidote_, not the toxin. And that means that what you just injected the Joker with…"

Harley's eyes went round and panicked, her eyes darting desperately from Andi to the table, to the Joker, and back to Andi. She started to whimper in the back of her throat. "No, no, no, please no, you couldn't have, you'd never—"

"That's right. You gave him the concentrated toxin Leena. _And I've just destroyed all the cures."_

* * *

It seemed like an eternity that they stared at each other.

Then Leena bent over the Joker, desperately shaking him with both hands. "J! Mr. J _please_! No no no no no!"

Her head jerked up, tears glinting like fire as she glared at Andi, all the happiness burned away. Her body tensed, her hands clawed at the gun in her belt. She drew and suddenly Pam leapt at her, knocked the shot aside, twisted her wrist until Harley dropped the weapon. Harley snarled, tried to leap at Andi, and Pam quite literally caught her in midair. She pulled her backwards towards the hole in the greenhouse Bruce had made earlier, hoisting her up by the waist when Leena tried to dig her feet in.

"Come on, come on, Harley, we've got to go, if the Batman's got the cure he'll be up and active soon and we need to be out of the way—"

"MURDERER! I'LL KILL YOU! I'LL KILL YOU! YOU LIAR, YOU—YOU TRAITOR! I'LL KILL YOU BOTH! YOU _AND_ THE BATMAN! I'LL HACK YOU APART, I'LL WATCH YOU DIE AND I'LL LAUGH! YES I WILL, I'LL DESTROY YOU BOTH, SLICE YOU INTO LITTLE PIECES IN FRONT OF EACH OTHER AND WE'LL SEE WHO'S LAUGHING, WE'LL SEE WHO'S LAUGHING THEN YOU MURDERER, I'LL WATCH YOU DIE! I'LL KILL YOU MYSELF, DANCE ON YOUR GRAVE AND—"

They disappeared into the night.

Andi slowly sank down onto the concrete, her face ashen. She looked again at Bruce and saw that his eyes were open, that he was watching her.

"Hey." The word was a shaky whisper. _Forgive me_. "How do you feel?"

"Better than you probably." Bruce turned his head slowly, as if testing the ability of each muscle to respond. His voice was gruff and Batman-ish. Of course. The Joker was still in the room, possibly lucid even, if his normal state could be considered 'lucid.' Strange to think that she'd forgotten about him. Once Andi looked at him, though, she couldn't unlock her gaze. He was mesmerizing, still snickering to himself, rocking from side to side on his back like an overturned turtle.

Bruce very carefully sat up and pushed himself closer to her, wrapped an armored arm around her shoulder. Andi leaned in to him without thinking, still staring at the Joker.

"That didn't go like I wanted," she muttered.

"What did you expect? That she'd suddenly become Leena again?"

"Expect? No. But I… I hoped…"

_'I'll kill you, you liar… traitor…'_

Andi shuddered, and it took everything she had to keep speaking.

"I… I know you don't kill. And I didn't want to do it. But… I couldn't… he hurt her… I had the chance and I didn't even… I didn't plan for it to happen that way, things just kept moving and I went with them, and then I saw an opportunity and…"

Bruce didn't answer.

"But it wasn't just for Leena!" Andi said fiercely, his silence making her more defensive than an accusation ever could. "It was for every parent in Gotham who's lost a child. Every cop and child and innocent he's killed and to protect all those he would have killed if he'd been allowed to continue. He had to be stopped. Not just for me, but for others. For Gotham. Like I promised."

He still didn't answer, and as Andi stared at the Joker she started to realize why. Because there was no answer. Because maybe it had been the right thing to do, but that didn't change the facts, didn't change her actions or her choice. Right or wrong, selfish or sacrificing, he was still going to die. And, despite all the justifications, the fact that she hadn't even been the one to do it…

"His blood's still on my hands isn't it?" Andi finally asked in a very small voice. His arm tightened around her. They both knew the answer to that. _Forgive me_._ Leena. Bruce. Even you, Joker, whoever you are. Forgive me, but I can't say that I'm sorry._

Bruce finally cleared his throat. "So it was a cure she gave me?"

"Yes." Andi's voice was faint, but she tried to gather her thoughts. "My original plan was just to have them inject you so I could find out what the antidote was. Then things… went farther. I broke him loose to stall Pam and Leena from hurting you, figured that you'd be well enough by then to take him down if I could just bring him back here, but then she heard me mention the medicine… and I saw that…" Andi cleared her throat. Bruce knew well enough what had happened after that. "I injected Gordon with the serum too when I was breaking into Arkham, although he thought it was the toxin. As long as nobody finds him before the pain wears off, they should be able to get an unpolluted sample of the proteins from his blood. If not, they'll have to get one from you. That was the whole idea behind why I… why I let you get… oh, God, I'm sorry. What you must have thought of me, doing that, agreeing to help them so I could stall for time and…"

"You did what you had to."

"Your DNA isn't in any database. Believe me, I've checked every one of them." A few weeks ago. A lifetime ago. Perhaps even in an alternate reality. "We should be able to work up enough smoke and mirrors they won't even suspect the source of the blood when they examine it. Giving them a sample shouldn't compromise your identity."

The Joker's body jerked, his laughter increasing slightly in tempo. Bruce stood slowly and tugged her wrist until Andi pushed herself up too.

"Come on. We don't have to see this."

Andi didn't break her eyes from him, transfixed by his shaking form, by the way his tics seemed to be accelerating as the toxin really set to work. His tongue ran around his lips, he touched his ear, his giggles became louder, broke into a sequence of outright laughter, died down again, he ran his hand through his lank green curls, his face changed expression like a chameleon changed colors…

"I do." _The man I killed. The man I destroyed._ Somehow she couldn't summon guilt, only a horrible exhausted numbness.

Bruce stayed still and Andi could sense his agreement. Slowly he pulled her against him, wrapped both arms around her. The contact was comforting, the last anchor in a turbulent sea. Andi clung to him while they both stared at his nemesis, at the man who had broken so many people, destroyed so many lives.

_Forgive me_. She didn't know who she whispered the words to now, but she repeated them over and over in her mind through the long hours of their vigil. Neither she nor Bruce spoke again that night.

The Joker died laughing.


	27. Epilogue

**Chapter 27:** Epilogue

"How's it going?"

Andi must have become used to Bruce's quiet entrance to the caves because she didn't even look up from where she knelt on the ground, sorting thick manila file folders into huge storage boxes. "Done!" she said triumphantly. "Case notes, autopsies, I've even managed to edit that incident with tracking the Joker so that it sounds like Gordon was behind most of it rather than you. The Batman's still mentioned in a couple instances, but your involvement shouldn't be recorded as really interacting with the police or being too important to killing the Joker. You'll be as faceless as ever to investigators."

"Good." Bruce took a seat on one of the boxes and watched as she kept meticulously filing the data. "What did Gordon say when he gave this to you?"

"Quite a bit. I hadn't talked to him since I pretended to poison him a week ago, so there was a lot to catch up on. Not to mention a _lot_ of groveling on my part."

"You?" Bruce asked, "Groveling? What, did you say you were 'very sorry' instead of just 'sorry?'"

Andi didn't look up, but he could practically hear her eyes rolling in their sockets. "I've apologized before. I even did it to you once, when I still thought you were an enemy."

"And it looked about as painful as a root canal."

"At least you get anesthesia for those." She was still looking down at her papers, but Bruce thought he saw a corner of her lips pull up. "Anyways. No word on Harley and Ivy—they're well and truly off the reservation now. There are still a few hysterical 'sightings' getting called in on the hotlines but I have a feeling the two of them won't be found until they want to be."

"And the Joker?"

Andi shuddered. "He's dead, Bruce. I examined his corpse, and there were absolutely no vital signs. Just because they didn't find his body… it could have been any number of things. Harley coming back for him. Someone else walking in and deciding to get rid of the body. Cops who didn't think he deserved a funeral."

Bruce nodded, but he couldn't make himself believe it, and he could tell Andi didn't either. He'd accepted that the Joker was never coming back. He knew that with absolute, bone-deep instinct. But death and the Joker… the two words just didn't fit together in his mind. The Joker might never come back, never be seen again, but that didn't mean he wasn't still out there somewhere, laughing at all of them for their stupidity.

The thought was so unsettling he changed the subject.

"So did Gordon accept your, um, groveling?"

"He says he understands why I had to trick him. But…" Andi set aside the papers and took a seat across from him on her own box. Her voice was low but very calm. "But he doesn't want me back at MCU when he rebuilds it. Or even with those incompetents at county."

"Why not?"

"Several reasons. Ivy and Harley mostly. Gordon doesn't know what they're planning or how to stop them. Until they're caught… he wants me to go into hiding. He's offered to forge a new identity for me, get me whatever I need to start in another job, things like that. And, although it's hardly going to fool them, he's offered to help me fake forensic evidence to make it look like I died in that explosion at Arkham so I can avoid anyone else wondering what happened to me. After MCU was destroyed and Harley and Ivy turned, there shouldn't be anyone out there who will care enough to look into it too closely."

"Are you going to take him up on it?"

"Whether I do or not, he's not allowing me back into Gotham PD. He says that, after pretending to poison him and going behind his back in several instances… he doesn't blame me, exactly, but I've gone too far. Grown too much. He doesn't think he could really remain in authority over me after all that's happened."

It didn't answer his actual question and both Bruce and Andi knew it. He didn't push her though, and they sat there for several seconds, each lost in their own thoughts. For some reason, even thought they weren't so much as looking at each other, he was very _aware_ of the woman sitting across from him. He would have liked it to last, but he'd come down here for a reason and slowly the need to speak built up within him like pressure growing behind a dam. Bruce darted a glance at her and saw that she was biting her lip as if struggling with her own thoughts.

"I wanted to—"

"There's something I—"

Both of them broke off, smiling a bit. Bruce motioned to her. "You first."

"Alright." For once, Andi seemed to have trouble marshalling her thoughts. "I… I suppose I should start with… with Pam and Leena. Not Ivy and Harley. My friends, Pam and Leena.

"I keep going over it in my head. Before… all this… if anyone had asked me which of the three of us was the least likely to ever hurt someone, I'd have told them Leena. And if they'd asked which was the most likely to be a martyr, to fight and suffer and die before giving an inch in her ideals, I would have said Pam."

"It's not your fault that they didn't act like you expected." Bruce said. Andi stared at her hands.

"Maybe," she said, sounding out the word as if she'd never said it before. Given how certain she always acted, it might well be. "Maybe not. I think I could have done more. Should have done more. But then I would have had to sacrifice other things, and who knows how it all would have turned out then? I keep telling myself that. But that's not my point."

Of course not. That would be the natural train of thought, and Andi's mind never worked like you expected it to. "Then what is?"

"My point is that they turned. _They_ did and _I _didn't. And I keep coming back to the question of… why? Why me? I was the mediocre one of the bunch, I didn't have Leena's purity or Pam's courage. If anything, I'm the cold, calculating one; I should have given out first. But somehow _I'm_ the one who stayed with what was right. How did it turn out like that? What was so different in my situation? And the one thing I can come up with, the one thing I had and they didn't was… you."

Something twisted in Bruce's gut. "Andi—"

Damned woman's intuition. She heard everything Bruce wanted to keep hidden in that one word and when he stood she did too, inches from him. Her hand tentatively reached up, brushed through his hair and came to rest on his cheek, just like Rachel's had when she left him. And just like that time, Bruce couldn't move away, couldn't listen to the little voice in his head that told him this was a bad idea.

Andi kept talking, oblivious. "You told me if I ever meant it you'd be there. And when Ivy and Harley had you on the ground, and Harley asked me if I loved you—" she closed her eyes and swallowed. "I didn't lie Bruce. It's taken me the loss of two best friends, the destruction of everything else I've relied on in life, but I want to be with you. I want to help you as the Batman and to be with you as… more."

Bruce's hand came up, caught her by the wrist and pulled her hand down. His face was inches from hers, the desire thudding through his veins. It took more willpower than he'd thought he possessed to not lean in towards her and—

"Andi I can't."

"Yes you can. _We_ can."

"Andi… no." Bruce pulled himself away from her, far enough that he could at least pretend the temptation wasn't so strong. "That's what I was going to tell you. I know what you want. And, God help me, I want to be with you too. But we _can't."_

Her eyes snapped open. "This is about the danger isn't it? About your heroics and the worry that I'll get sucked into them."

"Yes—no—something like that." Bruce took a deep breath. "It's true that I don't want you to be hurt Andi. And if I loved you, can I put you in danger?"

"Of course not!" Andi tossed her hair. "But it's not like I'm going to be safe _without _you Bruce. In fact, with Harley and Ivy around, I think you're probably the best protection a girl can get."

Bruce couldn't think of anything to say to that and Andi was relentless.

"You need to be fair here Bruce! You worry about the danger for me, but I'm going to be just as worried about your safety. Do you think it will be easy for _me_ to learn to live wondering every night if it'll be the one that some criminal or policeman makes a lucky shot, or the time you're not_ quite_ careful enough and your mask slips? The time you're going to die saving someone? It's something we'll both have to deal with, something we'll both learn to get through. Together."

_She missed her calling in life,_ he thought ruefully. _ She would have made a great lawyer. Like Rachel._ The memory was enough to jolt him from his silence. Rachel. Dead because of him. He refused to do it to another woman.

"I'm not saying it's fair, Andi. And I'm not saying it's logical, but it's there. But maybe you're right. Maybe if that was the only thing stopping me I'd even be willing to try, but it's bigger than that."

"Then give me the whole thing!"

Bruce couldn't look her in the eyes anymore. He stared around the cave instead, ruthlessly reminding himself of what it was here for, why he existed in the first place. "You'd be in danger because of who I am. The Batman. And that… my identity… that's the real problem.

"It's not even a job, Andi, not really. It's a life. One that I have to put before everything else. _Everything_ Andi. And that means, if I agreed, Gotham and the Batman would still have to come before you. That if I'm forced to choose between saving the city and you… You don't deserve that. To be second priority. And you wouldn't want that place if I offered it."

"YES I WOULD!" Andi cleared her throat and obviously tried to moderate her voice, but it was still furious, tinged with desperation. "Or at least I'd be willing to give it a shot."

"No you wouldn't." Bruce looked down again and saw that she was blinking furiously. The pain in his chest had nothing to do with the lingering bruises from the Joker. He had to say it. "I know you Andi. You give your whole heart and soul to what you love. And you demand nothing less from others."

"I don't care! Maybe I would with most people, Bruce, but I would know why you couldn't give me more, and I'd be alright with it. Bruce, please—"

"You'd be alright with it? Do you mean that? Could you live with a man who was in constant danger, who—"

"Soldiers' and cops' wives do it all the time!"

"And you're not like them! You're too involved in this; you'd demand to be allowed to share in the dangers, and I can't let that happen! You just aren't strong enough to deal with it."

She stared at him as if he'd slapped her and then something in her gaze turned deadly. "What does _that_ mean?"

"Maybe I misspoke," Bruce backpedaled. "It's not that you're weak. Not in the least. It's that you're… you're too tough, too independent to commit yourself to this sort of life."

"Commitment issues? Sounds like weakness to me."

"Think it through Andi. _Think!_ It's impossible to be with me in public. Ivy and Harley would figure out my identity as the Batman the minute you were seen by the press with Bruce Wayne. And I… Andi I know you. You _can't_ be some secret lover or whatever. It's just not in you. Not when I have to remain Bruce Wayne the Billionaire. Could you deal with that? With allowing me to drag different barely-dressed women around in public, maybe even back home a couple of times, while still dating you?"

Andi stared at him and for the first time Bruce saw the beginnings of surrender form in her face. It sickened him, but he made himself press his advantage.

"And what if we wanted to go farther Andi? We never could. No going out in public, no _children_, and if we ever married it would be a secret, hidden event as if I was _ashamed_ of you! Tell me that that doesn't bother you."

"It doesn't—"

"No! Not like that, dammit. You look me in the eyes and tell me."

Her eyes were glassy with unshed tears, but she met his gaze without flinching. "Alright then. It bothers me Bruce. Of course it bothers me. But we brought down the Joker together, we've fought and won against biological attacks and drowning and explosions and all sorts of other near death experiences. We can work this out. Just—just give it a chance. That's all I'm asking. I can't… Bruce, I'm begging you. There's no one else out there. No one who will even care enough to collect my 'remains' from autopsy. And I can't be alone anymore. Not after what I've done."

It was the hope in her eyes that was the worst. The hope and the desperation, the same expression you might see in a woman hanging onto a cliff's edge, expecting you to reach out a hand. Bruce couldn't bring himself to answer, couldn't make himself say the words out loud. He watched instead, unable to keep her from falling, unable to turn away.

Her expression changed, crumpled. She turned away from him and stared blindly at the waterfall. Bruce didn't think he was supposed to see the tears that were tracing down her face. "Andi, I'm—"

"Don't say it," she said flatly, not even turning towards him, "Don't you dare say you're sorry. You've chosen."

She folded her arms and glared forward, still talking to the waterfall rather than him. "If that's your decision then fine. But I want you to know, Wayne, that if you're out, you're out. I don't want to be involved with you. And I don't want you involved with me—not professionally, not emotionally, not even as friends. I'll let Gordon get me a new identity, and I don't want you to follow it. Now let me finish sorting through this. I have a lot to do before I leave tomorrow."

Was it cowardice or bravery that made Bruce turn and leave? All he knew was that, either way, it was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. He tried to block out emotion, but the minute he passed out of eyesight he heard an inhuman shriek, something crashing on the rocks, and then the only slightly quieter sound of her sobs.

Alfred was waiting in the study. Perhaps he didn't know the particulars of what had happened, but he at least caught on to Bruce's mood and waited for him to speak.

"Andi—Andi will be moving out. Tomorrow, or maybe tonight even. Help her pack, and make sure you supply her with enough money. Hide it in her suitcase; she won't take it willingly. And tell her I said good-bye."

"Yes sir."

Bruce nodded and turned to leave, where he didn't quite know, but his butler stopped him. "Master Wayne—"

Whatever the elderly man had been about to say, it died on his lips as Bruce met his concerned expression with a deadpan stare.

"Batman, Alfred. Batman. It's all I am, and all I ever will be. I should have stopped pretending otherwise a long time ago."

* * *

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me," she muttered as red and blue lights started to flash behind her, matched by the loud wail of sirens. She cast a hopeful glance around the dark road for another lawbreaker, but she'd been the last one through the changing light and everyone seemed to be sticking to their lane.

Panic fluttered in her chest, but she wrestled it away and pulled the car onto the shoulder. This would have come sooner or later, and maybe it was best to just get it over with. She rolled down the window, shut off the engine, and switched the lights on inside the car, then placed her hands back on the wheel. Police in Gotham were understandably jumpy and might suspect she was pulling out a gun rather than a vehicle registration if she reached inside the glove compartment before asked. Better to wait.

The officer looked vaguely familiar even in the dark, and as he bent down to peer inside her car she felt a jolt of recognition. The rent-a-cop from the Palisades? Gordon really must be scraping at the bottom of the barrel to replenish his forces. _And for all that, he still won't hire me back._

"Ma'am? May I see your license and registration please?"

She had to fight the instinct to hide her face as she obeyed and pulled out her wallet and the other papers. Her disguise wasn't very heavy; it couldn't be if she was going to live with it day in and day out. Hair dyed to a shiny jet black, meticulously straightened instead of her natural soft curls. Make-up to accentuate the slight slant in her eyes, the angles in her face, contacts to darken her eyes. She'd always foregone her Asian heritage in favor of the Hispanic and, while she had been pretty impressed with the result of changing it around, this was its first real test against someone from her former life.

He peered closely at the license, but she knew it would hold against any but the most in-depth background check, and the registration was completely legitimate. Gordon was very thorough when it came to protecting his people. The officer still frowned at something on it.

"Miss Kayla… Eng… Guy…"

"Nguyen, officer. Pronounced the same way as '_When_ was the California Gold Rush?'"

He paused and cocked his head at her. After a moment she decided to have pity on him. "1848 to 1855."

"You a history buff?"

"Teacher. At Gotham High."

He snorted disdainfully and handed back the ID. Despite the fact that the man was looking her full in the face, he obviously still didn't know her. She allowed herself to relax a bit. "Well then, Miss 'When,' do you realize you drove through a red light at that intersection? I'm going to have to ticket you for that."

She was considering being a brat on the issue and demanding to see his dash cam, but before she could make up her mind there was a cacophony of sirens on the road behind them. At least four cruisers zoomed past, chasing after something. Instinctively, her eyes turned to the sky, searching for—

A moving shadow leapt from building to building, then stretched his cape and plummeted, swooped down into the night and disappeared. She stared at the darkness where he had been long after he'd vanished into the dark, then swallowed past the lump in her throat._ He left you. He left you like everyone else and he's not coming back. Now get your head out of the clouds. He's gone, just like the rest of them. He left you. He left you. He left you.  
_

The officer cleared his throat and when she turned her attention back to him, she saw that he looked vaguely panicked. He must have glimpsed the Batman. She gave the plump man a shaky smile, as if she too had been frightened, but it didn't seem to soothe him.

"Ummm… never mind Miss. I'll let you off with a warning this time." He scuttled back to his car, leaving her alone on the side of the road.

She very deliberately did not hesitate, did not waste time on trying to catch her breath or hold back tears. Instead, she made herself pull back out onto the lanes and drive on, carefully obeying the traffic laws this time. _He left me_, she repeated to herself. _But just like when Pam and Leena left me I can learn to live through it. I am strong enough. I'm strong enough to survive alone._

That didn't stop her from glancing back at the spot where he'd vanished just before it passed out of view.


End file.
